Slashdot Mirror

There are news bites coming out about Firefox everywhere you could possibly imagine.

Thanks, but we've already heard about Google News.

By conservative estimates, 250,000 children died from 1991 to 1996. But during those five years, Saddam refused offers to sell his oil and import humanitarian goods under UN supervision, gambling that images of starving babies would break the will of the international community.

By 1996 he was allowed to sell oil to clients of his choice provided that the income went into a UN account to be spent on food and medicine.

Saddam siphoned 10 cents off every barrel of oil leaving the country and a further 10 per cent "kickback" from every shipment of food or medicine to reach Iraq.

Tyrant's oil-for-food scam raised £11bn, along with a choice quote:

The scam - under which Saddam would bribe officials with vouchers entitling the bearer to a certain amount of oil on the open market - had brought in the equivalent of £11 billion for his regime, the US Congress has been told.

That has been taken as further proof that the UN sanctions regime was crumbling - and that Saddam had acquired the financial muscle needed to pursue his aim of acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

And here is another good source

Well, you can - but our government also has a system in place to effectively bypass this "obstruction" whenever they find it too inconvenient... eminent domain.

It's known as "a ransom strip". Especially when it's the local government which owns the land... This happened in Scotland. The council sold off some land to developers, but kept the end of the road under ownership. Private house owners want to sell a field to developers and planning permission for a new subdivision was granted, so long as the plans incorporated the road as the exclusive access route.

The result: 9 square meres of tarmac = 1 million pounds.

> ..just as, ehm, potent?

If they've crossed it with the "plant that yields up to four times more cocaine than existing plants and promises to revolutionise Colombia's drugs industry" which they came across this summer, then yes.

To quote:

A toxicologist, Camilo Uribe, who studied the coca, said: "The quality and percentage of hydrochloride from each leaf is much better, between 97 and 98 per cent. A normal plant does not get more than 25 per cent, meaning that more drugs and of a higher purity can be extracted."

Looks like the "War on Drugs"® has turned out to be about successful as the "War on Terror"®

But then the "War on Drugs" was never about drugs and the "War on Terror" was never about terror.

"Well, you know, when I talked about the $87 billion [appropriations bill that Mr Kerry voted for and against], I made a mistake in how I talked about the war. But the president made a mistake in invading Iraq. Which is worse?"
Democrats claim first blood as eloquent Kerry rattles Bush

What do you have to say about pygmies from the Congo jungle?

[An Indonesian island reveals the existence of an extinct group of pygmy humans]

There was a recent study where a small number of people were able to detect lies with a nearly 100% accuracy. To me, this is far more impressive than a polygraph's results.

How is America overpopulated, my anonymous friend? Aren't you aware that most industrialized societies have diminishing birthrates and some like Japan have negative birth rates?
What is considered the third world outpaces the western, industrialized sphere but does not equal the world. India + China != the world but at their current pace that could be the very case!
Please note that America has remained positive with two births for every death due to its immigration policies, Patriot Act and 9/11 notwithstanding, and should it close its borders in the same fashion as North Korea there will be serious trouble.
Cite Another Cite. Yet Another Cite.

Just recently, suppliments have been shown to reduce lifespan. So by this recent data, Kurzweil may actually be shortening his lifespan. And this study is not based on diabetics taking masses doses either. I'm wondering what age his kidneys are.

Rigging CIA reports? So Bush did all of that too while Clinton was in office? Hell, Hans Blix has come out and said that the reports on Iraq's weapons programs were understated.

The rich pay most of the taxes, cutting taxes for everyone (which was done), gives them a lot back because they are already paying a tremendous amount. The economy is growing and jobs being created. You can look all of this up easily on the Net.

Also, if you briefly met a person once 3 years ago and never saw them since, it wouldn't be difficult to forget that you've seen them before.

Clinton committed a felony by lying under oath in a court of law. You make it sound as if we are getting Iraqi oil for free, but even if we were, it's the lifeblood of the industrialized world. Going to war to secure oilfields from a nutcase does the world a favor. Tens of thousands more of died for less, but your head is implanted too far up your own ass to tell the difference.

The hole in the ozone layer has actually SHRUNK 20% from last year. More evidence that the scientist do no fully understand the ecosystem enough to make alarmist predictions.

The proof: http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1147332004 /

Experts at British Gas indeed. Why? How? No one is even telling us the quantity that is being calculated in this dubious formula.

If you don't know, guys, kindly don't pass it on. So far it's just noise. Here's a slightly better link, but still not, in my opinion, enough to bother with.

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1144882004

The above link has three pertinant quotes.

"Microsoft's fortunes grew with personal computers or, more specifically, supplying the software for what used to be called "IBM-compatible PCs". It is easy to forget that 20 years ago there were a number of standards competing for dominance. (Of the others, only Apple survives.)"

"Google knows it cannot remain just a search engine company, because that leaves it vulnerable if someone else comes along and does it better. That is why it keeps adding services. The best publicised has been its proposed e-mail service, Gmail, which has upset privacy activists because it will include advertising based on the content of the e-mails. But it is likely to prove extremely popular because it will make searching through e-mail much easier and quicker, and because it offers a gigabyte of storage. For most users, that means they will never have to delete another e-mail. "

"But Microsoft is vulnerable if a competitor shifts the focus away from the PC and on to the internet. And we all know the company most capable of that."

Take that all to the extreme - If network centric computing and a company like google go to the logical conclusion of their efforts, subsuming encyclopedia software (remember encarta?), email, games and eventually word processing and other applications into an always on, globally available internet technology that would free you from not just your desktop but from even needing a permanent computer of your own, wouldn't the most logical thing to beat be problems with privacy?

After all, if you can eliminate "spying" on a distributed system like that, then you've aready eliminated spyware as a matter of course (maybe by using thin clients and making all the intelligence and security reside in the server and communication layers).

Each rat has electrodes implanted in three areas of the brain which process odour signals, plan movements and experience rewards. The scientists stimulated the reward centre to generate feelings of pleasure when the rodent's nose picked up a whiff of human. In this way, the rats were trained to seek out human odours.

I admit that the sand pit in Jedi did look way too much like a really nasty vagina until Lucas put in the appendage with the beak, so that's fixed.

It's called vaginoplasty and it's becoming increasingly fashionable these days...

Moderate drinkers earn more too! Mine's a pint please.

And banning guns doesn't stop people from killing each other either. They use knives instead.

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

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

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

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

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

Um, unless I have a huge blind spot, the article says no such thing. In fact, this article makes it clear that the latest article he has published was in March 2003, and although a further paper is forthcoming, it is believed that the first two papers contain a correct proof.

As far as I can tell, it seems the fuss is rather about the distinguished mathematician (math popularizer, rather) Keith Devlin saying that he thinks it is correct... but as far as I can tell, he has no special authority on the problem and hasn't looked it over in the details

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1028302004
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2004/09/02/walien02.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/09/02 /ixworld.html

BTW #1, why do I want to subscribe to Slashdot (grin)??? This SETI potential-find was first posted on Matt Drudge's website very early this morning with a link to the NewScientist article that was "Drudged" vice Slashdotted almost immediately.

BTW #2, there are actually a bunch of candidate signals

--
I believe the SwiftVets and also ...

Here is an article that is un-slashdotted as of 0057 Universal Time.

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1028302004 / So there.

is here on
Scotsman.com.

slashdotted - try this http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1028302004 /

Conservatives, huh?

Then why is it that John Kerry is trying to ban a book that raises questions about him? And why did I get modded down from +2 to a -1, Flamebait, for mentioning it on Slashdot?

Liberals are not as tolerant of opposing views as you seem to think they are.

A strange argument. Because your power grid is in havoc you don't see a chance for electric cars? So, you don't plan to fix your power grid? You don't plan to reduce energy consumption, which could lift some pressure from the grid?

No, the entire power distribution system does need to be upgraded and expanded. But the question is by how much?

If all-electric cars become popular in the market, electrical demand would not just increase, it would explode. Unless you've prepared for the surge in extra demand the entire system would be in serious trouble. This usually translates to skyrocketing energy prices, which hurts everyone including those with incentive to buy electric cars in the first place.

As it stands, you can reasonably estimate what kind of power demands there will be in the future and plan accordingly. It takes years to build a powerplant, so if demand increases too quickly you will not be able to keep up with it. It would be extremely difficult to estimate how the demand would increase if deomestic electric cars were introduced competatively into the market.

Powerplants tend not to last that long either ('bout 10-15 years before they need a major overhaul), so it's not worth bulking up for a boom that may never happen becuse you might never see a return on your investment.

Fertelizers, competition with food farming, loss of land due errosion, climate changes likely will make that competition harder, water distribution etc.

Fertilizers is a valid downpoint, though it depends a lot on what you're growing for fuel. You could likely minimize this by properly recycling the unused portion of the fuel crop. You can likely make up the rest using human effluent and agricultural wastes like animal dung and offal. Plenty of that to go around.

There would be little or no competition with food farming. You're probably not going to be growing edible crops! Farms are going under left and right as it is. Finding a suitable, easy to grow fuel crop (hemp? algae?) would help the farming sector quite a bit I imagine.

The land erosion issue is also something that is already addressed to various degrees in the existing farming industry. It's not unreasonable to correct this.

I'm not sure what you mean by "climate changes likely will make that competition harder"...

Perhaps the biggest problem is the water. Definately a deciding factor for this idea... although finding a crop that can grow in seawater (algae or seaweed?) would instantly eliminate it. If we can develop a super coca plant then we can develop a super algae.

=Smidge=

Unfit for Command

Quoth the good professor:
The extraordinary thing about this meteor strike is that it appeared to do so little damage. Unlike the dinosaur strike there is no telltale layer of dust that demonstrates the history of the event.

It ploughs through millions of tonnes of ice and snow, then leaves no layer of dust... d'you think it might have, I dunno, melted or something?

More information at The Scotsman, btw.

Photons are gluten intolerant.

Mal-2

Guess the Games have become about money too now.

They are also about the orgy that is the Olympic Village.

And then came the articles that Google doesn't want to IPO - they want to remain "pure" and "uncompromised" by not having a board of directors and shareholders who would force them to become "evil." In the end, it was a great marketing strategy - playing "hard to get."

Although Google chants "Don't be evil" in public, actions behind the scenes speak louder than words.

From an August 5, 2004, article at http://business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=89761200 4

GOOGLE, the internet search engine company, admitted it may have broken United States stock market rules after it revealed it

illegally issued about 30 million shares worth £1.69 billion to current and former staff. ...
The firm, whose search engine gets more than 200 million inquiries every day, said it may have broken federal securities laws and the securities laws of 18 states, including New York, Texas and Virginia, by failing to register the stock and options or exempt them from registration.

This illegal action was fueled by greed.

Google is fueled by greed. They, and Stanford University, own a patent on facets of the Google page rank technology, and we all know that Software Patents are Evil (TM) .

Now, from the Stanford Daily (May 21, 2004):

In a separate development, University President John Hennessy

took a position on the board of Google in late April, as one of three company outsiders that Google added to its corporate board before its IPO. Hennessy was granted 65,000 shares of stock when he joined the board. These shares could potentially be worth millions of dollars, depending on the eventual stock value.

First off, does Hennessy need the money? He already founded MIPS, which has licensed its intellectual property in everything from the Nintendo 64 to the PlayStation and PlayStation 2. He earns $566,581 a year from his salary as President of Stanford(November 26, 2003,Stanford Daily), and additional revenue due to royalties from his textbooks, which (of course) feature the MIPs assembly language (and only MIPS) as examples.

Secondly, is Hennessy's arrival at Google some sort of payoff? We've seen how this cozy kind of relationship can be very corrupt. If a professor serves on the board of directors of company "x", then there is a definite conflict of interest, as the professor will push company "x"'s products when he can (after all, it only increases the value of the professor's stock).

From an article by Deborah Gage, on June 8, 2004, at http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,1761,a=129083 ,00.asp , which was discussed on Slashdot a while back:

Stanford has spent more than seven years transferring its financial systems onto applications from Oracle called Oracle Financials. The project was supposed to be finished in 1999. ...
Stanford has spent a lot of money on software and still has work to do. According to the university's annual budget plans, the board of trustees since 1999 has been asked to approve $93.4 million in capital expenditures for applications and infrastructure . The trustees had approved $60 million in 1994 to overhaul Stanford's entire administrative information systems, a project they expected would take five years, even though controller Susan Calandra says some of the projects in the original plan were never started. ...
Three Stanford professors serve on Oracle's board of directors... ...
Now faced with budget cuts and layoffs, Stanford's information technology department has

"ARREST foreigners for READING A MAP"

UK news, 2 days ago: "It was said that, between 19 February, 2001, and 4 August, 2004, he was in possession of a "reconnaissance plan" [a map] for the Prudential Building, in New Jersey, and the document was "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism"." - Example

And the same thing could be done for almost any country.
Many of those are accusations, and while some are probably true, we can do the same thing for almost any country. Let's start a list, shall we?

England
England again (the world champ 100m sprinter... no!)
Germany
Ireland
Russia
Turkey!

How multicultural! Those took me about 5 minutes to find.

Have a good day

With google's ubiquity in almost everyone's daily internet life,

the potential for misconduct is staggering. The fact that they haven't abused their position yet makes me proud of the fact that i can afford exactly 1 share of their stock right now.

I agree with you 150%. Unfortunately, although Google chants "Don't be evil" in public, actions behind the scenes speak louder than words, and they have broken the law. From an August 5, 2004, article at http://business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=89761200 4

GOOGLE, the internet search engine company, admitted it may have broken United States stock market rules after it revealed it

illegally issued about 30 million shares worth £1.69 billion to current and former staff. ...
The firm, whose search engine gets more than 200 million inquiries every day, said it may have broken federal securities laws and the securities laws of 18 states, including New York, Texas and Virginia, by failing to register the stock and options or exempt them from registration.

This illegal action was fueled by greed.

Google is fueled by greed. They, and Stanford University, own a patent on facets of the Google page rank technology, and we all know that Software Patents are Evil (TM) .

Now, from the Stanford Daily (May 21, 2004):

In a separate development, University President John Hennessy

took a position on the board of Google in late April, as one of three company outsiders that Google added to its corporate board before its IPO. Hennessy was granted 65,000 shares of stock when he joined the board. These shares could potentially be worth millions of dollars, depending on the eventual stock value.

First off, Does Hennessy need the money? He already founded MIPS, which has licensed its intellectual property in everything from the Nintendo 64 to the PlayStation and PlayStation 2. He earns $566,581 a year from his salary as President of Stanford(November 26, 2003,Stanford Daily), and additional revenue due to royalties from his textbooks, which (of course) feature the MIPs assembly language (and only MIPS) as examples.

Secondly, is Hennessy's arrival at Google some sort of payoff? We've seen how this cozy kind of relationship can be very corrupt. If a professor serves on the board of directors of company "x", then there is a definite conflict of interest, as the professor will push company "x"'s products when he can (after all, it only increases the value of the professor's stock).

From an article by Deborah Gage, on June 8, 2004, at http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,1761,a=129083 ,00.asp , which was discussed on Slashdot a while back:

Stanford has spent more than seven years transferring its financial systems onto applications from Oracle called Oracle Financials. The project was supposed to be finished in 1999. ...
Stanford has spent a lot of money on software and still has work to do. According to the university's annual budget plans, the board of trustees since 1999 has been asked to approve $93.4 million in capital expenditures for applications and infrastructure . The trustees had approved $60 million in 1994 to overhaul Stanford's entire administrative information systems, a project they expected would take five years, even though controller Susan Calandra says some of the projects in the original plan were never started. ...
Three Stanford professors serve on Oracle's board of directors... ...
Now faced with budget cuts and layoffs

Google's "Do No Evil" mantra...

Although Google chants "Don't be evil" in public, actions behind the scenes speak louder than words.

From an August 5, 2004, article at http://business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=89761200 4

GOOGLE, the internet search engine company, admitted it may have broken United States stock market rules after it revealed it

illegally issued about 30 million shares worth £1.69 billion to current and former staff. ...
The firm, whose search engine gets more than 200 million inquiries every day, said it may have broken federal securities laws and the securities laws of 18 states, including New York, Texas and Virginia, by failing to register the stock and options or exempt them from registration.

This illegal action was fueled by greed.

Google is fueled by greed. They, and Stanford University, own a patent on facets of the Google page rank technology, and we all know that Software Patents are Evil (TM) .

Now, from the Stanford Daily (May 21, 2004):

In a separate development, University President John Hennessy

took a position on the board of Google in late April, as one of three company outsiders that Google added to its corporate board before its IPO. Hennessy was granted 65,000 shares of stock when he joined the board. These shares could potentially be worth millions of dollars, depending on the eventual stock value.

First off, Does Hennessy need the money? He already founded MIPS, which has licensed its intellectual property in everything from the Nintendo 64 to the PlayStation and PlayStation 2. He earns $566,581 a year from his salary as President of Stanford(November 26, 2003,Stanford Daily), and earns royalties from his textbooks, which (of course) feature the MIPs assembly language (and only MIPS) as examples.

Secondly, is Hennessy's arrival at Google some sort of payoff? We've seen how this cozy kind of relationship can be very corrupt. If a professor serves on the board of directors of company "x", then there is a definite conflict of interest, as the professor will push company "x"'s products when he can (after all, it only increases the value of the professor's stock).

From an article by Deborah Gage, on June 8, 2004, at http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,1761,a=129083 ,00.asp , which was discussed on Slashdot a while back:

Stanford has spent more than seven years transferring its financial systems onto applications from Oracle called Oracle Financials. The project was supposed to be finished in 1999. ...
Stanford has spent a lot of money on software and still has work to do. According to the university's annual budget plans, the board of trustees since 1999 has been asked to approve $93.4 million in capital expenditures for applications and infrastructure . The trustees had approved $60 million in 1994 to overhaul Stanford's entire administrative information systems, a project they expected would take five years, even though controller Susan Calandra says some of the projects in the original plan were never started. ...
Three Stanford professors serve on Oracle's board of directors... ...
Now faced with budget cuts and layoffs, Stanford's information technology department has successfully sent coding and maintenance work to outsourcing firms in India , which are helping with Oracle report writing and an upgrade to PeopleSoft v. 8. Jobs that require deeper knowledge of Stanford, such as writing specifications, have been kept at ho

One rare thing about Google is their "Don't Be Evil." mantra, which somewhat translates to the company turning down the chance to make quick bucks today in the expectation that they'll get that money back in the long run through their near-flawless reputation.

Although Google chants "Don't be evil" in public, actions behind the scenes speak louder than words.

From an August 5, 2004, article at http://business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=89761200 4

GOOGLE, the internet search engine company, admitted it may have broken United States stock market rules after it revealed it

illegally issued about 30 million shares worth £1.69 billion to current and former staff. ...
The firm, whose search engine gets more than 200 million inquiries every day, said it may have broken federal securities laws and the securities laws of 18 states, including New York, Texas and Virginia, by failing to register the stock and options or exempt them from registration.

This illegal action was fueled by greed.

Google is fueled by greed. They, and Stanford University, own a patent on facets of the Google page rank technology, and we all know that Software Patents are Evil (TM) .

Now, from the Stanford Daily (May 21, 2004):

In a separate development, University President John Hennessy

took a position on the board of Google in late April, as one of three company outsiders that Google added to its corporate board before its IPO. Hennessy was granted 65,000 shares of stock when he joined the board. These shares could potentially be worth millions of dollars, depending on the eventual stock value.

First off, Does Hennessy need the money? He already founded MIPS, which has licensed its intellectual property in everything from the Nintendo 64 to the PlayStation and PlayStation 2. He earns $566,581 a year from his salary as President of Stanford(November 26, 2003,Stanford Daily), and royalties from his textbooks, which (of course) feature the MIPs assembly language (and only MIPS) as examples.

Secondly, is Hennessy's arrival at Google some sort of payoff? We've seen how this cozy kind of relationship can be very corrupt. If a professor serves on the board of directors of company "x", then there is a definite conflict of interest, as the professor will push company "x"'s products when he can (after all, it only increases the value of the professor's stock).

From an article by Deborah Gage, on June 8, 2004, at http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,1761,a=129083 ,00.asp , which was discussed on Slashdot a while back:

Stanford has spent more than seven years transferring its financial systems onto applications from Oracle called Oracle Financials. The project was supposed to be finished in 1999. ...
Stanford has spent a lot of money on software and still has work to do. According to the university's annual budget plans, the board of trustees since 1999 has been asked to approve $93.4 million in capital expenditures for applications and infrastructure . The trustees had approved $60 million in 1994 to overhaul Stanford's entire administrative information systems, a project they expected would take five years, even though controller Susan Calandra says some of the projects in the original plan were never started. ...
Three Stanford professors serve on Oracle's board of directors... ...
Now faced with budget cuts and layoffs, Stanford's information technology department has successfully sent coding and maintenance wor

No kidding! conspiracy theorists are already having a field day And senators are alredy trying to lift the restriction on foreign-born people becoming prez.

Crick talked the DNA talk, and he walked the walk: "Crick leaves his wife, artist Odile Speed, their two daughters, and a son by a previous marriage."

There have been more and more stories in the mainstream press mentioning Firefox as a cure for what ails your computer:

Salt Lake Tribune
The Age
Sierra Star (CA)
Sun-Sentinel (FL)
News-Press (FL)
News-Leader (MO)
The Scotsman (guys in skirts)
etc...

Uh, I don't think so. If I remember correctly, the allegations were that HE was being abused by his wife.

This is a frighteningly common problem among people who require secondary care. If system administrators routinely refer to users as "lusers", you can begin to imagine the mental state of some home-care "professionals" after they've been spoon-feeding, giving sponge baths and getting drooled on for years. I'm not trying to make excuses for them, I think it's absolutely despicable, a vicious and sadistic crime, but it certainly does happen and that may be one of several reasons that incites it. It doesn't help that most of the people getting abused are unable to defend themselves or call out for help.

Which brings me to my second point: How in the world would Stephen Hawking manage to beat someone up? Last I checked he wasn't able to move his arms or legs, or even his head or mouth for the most part.

These people sure have!

Oddly enough, the police department in various parts of Scotland have discovered that the CCTV cameras installed on public buses have helped to catch criminals. Fixed point cameras are helpful in deterring crime in certain areas, but eventually criminals figure out the blind spots in the system.

I've seen the television sized screens on the double deckers. A 16" LCD display is mounted on the ceiling at the front of the top deck of the bus. There are around six cameras on the top of the bus which cover the staircase, both sides of the back row of the bus; the favourite location for drunk teenagers -neds (Non Educated Delinquents) and the front of the bus. The display cycles through the entire set of cameras. Quite entertaining if you can get a front row seat. Then you can watch the ned-cam as the bus goes through the city.

That Major was also convicted of cheating to win said million pounds. He also, interestingly enough, was convicted of fraud in an unrelated case that stems from his actions taking place slightly before the Millionaire scandal.

He's now hundreds of thousands of pounds in debt. Sucks to be him, I guess.

Link to the scotsman article.

An American judge is facing the sack after using a "penis pump" during court hearings.

After all, judges are people too..

George. May he rest in peace.

Most Americans Haven't A Clue About the EU
"PA" Most Americans rate their country as doing more to tackle the world's ills than the European Union, but admit to knowing little about the EU, according to a survey published today.

Americans ranked the US above the EU in each of five areas of global policy, according to a poll of 1,000 adults by Gallup.

The survey found that 69% rated the United States highly for its role in fighting terrorism, compared with 41% for the EU.

Washington also received higher rating than Brussels for the growth of the global economy, fighting poverty, keeping world peace and protecting the environment.

However most Americans acknowledged that they didn't know much about the 25 nation European Union, with 77% saying they knew "little or nothing."

The survey asked participants whether they thought the population of the EU was larger, smaller or similar to that of the United States.

Only 20 percent correctly said that the 25-nation EU - with more than 450 million people - is larger than the United States - which has a population of 290 million.

The survey found that Democrats generally had a better view of the EU than Republicans did, and in the areas of promoting peace and protecting the environment Democrats said that the EU was doing a better job than the United States.

Gallup said that result was "due not so much to awarding very high marks to the EU as to giving relatively low marks to their own country - at least at this point in history."

It added: "In the polarised atmosphere of the presidential election year, even Europe has become a partisan issue for the American public." http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3031509

That's the way it started - to drive iPod sales. Not any more though - after the initial capital costs, ITMS is now in the money. And likely to stay that way. Its not much (a couple of million) - but it NOT running at a loss.

In the US, how many police officers would have to die in a single incident to get that level of blanket news coverage? How many are shot and killed every week?

I don't know about the first question, but google will answer the second. E.g., from http://www.cnn.com/US/9812/29/police.killed/ it looks like about 150 police die in the line of duty each year. From the same source, it looks like the causes are split in about half from traffic accidents and shootings, with other causes pretty negligible. So the answer to your question, it appears, is between 1 and 2 a week.

According to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2660885.stm, there were 14 police deaths in the UK in 2002, and this was considered high. I can't find any stastics on shooting deaths (though apparently it does happen: one example). The difference in population is a factor of about five, so the UK would seem to indeed have a comparatively lower rate.

Obviously, in a country of almost 300 million people, there's room for a lot of stupid and unfortunate things happen all the time. I don't know quite what to make of any of these statistics.

--Bruce Fields