Slashdot Mirror

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2879875.ece Here's one for you. A guy on a bus who was in a diabetic coma was tasered. I'm sure that people in comas are extremely threatening and dangerous to those around them.

"Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection"

- Senior US District Judge Lowell Reed Jr., commenting on this same law when he struck it down last year ( http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article1554275.ece ).

But but... if we don't indoctrinate them with censorship now, whatever will they do when their children get into school, and they're asked to read the new Harry Potter-look-a-like book? They need to know how to lay down the ban hammer and throw those books out of school!

They should grow up on Conservapedia, where they liberally censor people, so they know that anything that offends them can be just be told to go away.

Like Satan! In the name of Jesus Christ, I compel you to leave me!

"Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection"

- Senior US District Judge Lowell Reed Jr., commenting on this same law when he struck it down last year ( http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article1554275.ece ).

George Soros is not involved.

Trivially easy to disprove.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3177653.ece

A STUDY that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros.

Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.

So is the Times lying? The New York Post? The International Herald Tribune? Is everybody lying except you?

And you can thank me at your convenience for saving you from thread drift. The Hunts have nothing to do with George Soros.

But it's not like anyone can pull up my profile and check

Actually, at various points in the past, they've been able to do that or similar things (see stuff you thought was private).

Trusting any company on the web with your private info should be a difficult decision, trusting Facebook is insane given the lack of interest in privacy they have shown so far, and the poor attention to security on their site. They're such a juicy target now that you can bet a lot of identity thieves are focussed on breaking their security, and a lot of big companies are interested in buying your surfing habits too.

This is why we've spent billions (trillions?) fighting a war on "terror,"

Not true. The billions have been spent because of U.S. government corruption. The U.S. government is being guided to do exactly what weapons and oil investors want.

Here is some information copied from numerous places:

There is evidence that whoever controls the U.S. government is planning to declare martial law. That's a top-rated story on Digg.com.

Search for "martial law" on digg.com or reddit.com. There are hundreds of links.

Cheney's company Halliburton is building prisons. There has never been an adequate explanation why. Do a Google search.

The U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security committee is not allowed to see the martial law plan.

According to the New Yorker Magazine, the Bush administration has already started another war in Iran. See President George W Bush backs Israeli plan for strike on Iran.

Bush and Cheney and their friends and families and associates are oil and weapons investors. Weapons investors want war all the time. Oil investors want to restrict the supply of oil, so that the price will rise.

The war with Iran has the same purpose as the war in Iraq. It will allow whoever controls the U.S. government to restrict the flow of oil even more, making the price go even higher.

The war with Iran is extremely unpopular with U.S. citizens. It is said that whoever is doing the planning will do terrorist acts in the U.S. and blame them on Iranians. That will allow the declaration of martial law. It is said that the planners have put a lot of time into passing laws that allow them to have more control and that they will not allow Barack Obama to become president because he would undo their work.

The U.S. government has manipulated the facts in other cases so that it will be allowed to start a war. One example is the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. "In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on 2 August."

our failed government institution

It has not failed. It is succeeding in doing exactly what weapons and oil investors want.

Here is some information collected from numerous places:

There is evidence that whoever controls the U.S. government is planning to declare martial law. That's a top-rated story on Digg.com.

Search for "martial law" on digg.com or reddit.com. There are hundreds of links.

Cheney's company Halliburton is building prisons. There has never been an adequate explanation why. Do a Google search.

The U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security committee is not allowed to see the martial law plan.

According to the New Yorker Magazine, the Bush administration has already started another war in Iran. See President George W Bush backs Israeli plan for strike on Iran.

Bush and Cheney and their friends and families and associates are oil and weapons investors. Weapons investors want war all the time. Oil investors want to restrict the supply of oil, so that the price will rise.

The war with Iran has the same purpose as the war in Iraq. It will allow whoever controls the U.S. government to restrict the flow of oil even more, making the price go even higher.

The war with Iran is extremely unpopular with U.S. citizens. It is said that whoever is doing the planning will do terrorist acts in the U.S. and blame them on Iranians. That will allow the declaration of martial law. It is said that the planners have put a lot of time into passing laws that allow them to have more control and that they will not allow Barack Obama to become president because he would undo their work.

The U.S. government has manipulated the facts in other cases so that it will be allowed to start a war. One example is the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. "In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on 2 August."

Actually, it is a LOT worse than you say.

Here is some information collected from numerous places:

There is evidence that whoever controls the U.S. government is planning to declare martial law. That's a top-rated story on Digg.com.

Search for "martial law" on digg.com or reddit.com. There are hundreds of links.

Cheney's company Halliburton is building prisons. There has never been an adequate explanation why. Do a Google search.

The U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security committee is not allowed to see the martial law plan.

According to the New Yorker Magazine, the Bush administration has already started another war in Iran. See President George W Bush backs Israeli plan for strike on Iran.

Bush and Cheney and their friends and families and associates are oil and weapons investors. Weapons investors want war all the time. Oil investors want to restrict the supply of oil, so that the price will rise.

The war with Iran has the same purpose as the war in Iraq. It will allow whoever controls the U.S. government to restrict the flow of oil even more, making the price go even higher.

The war with Iran is extremely unpopular with U.S. citizens. It is said that whoever is doing the planning will do terrorist acts in the U.S. and blame them on Iranians. That will allow the declaration of martial law. It is said that the planners have put a lot of time into passing laws that allow them to have more control and that they will not allow Barack Obama to become president because he would undo their work.

The U.S. government has manipulated the facts in other cases so that it will be allowed to start a war. One example is the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. "In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on 2 August."

Now the iPhone interest seems to almost completely fallen off the radar.

The iPhone 3G has ten times the interest of iPhone v1 in the U.K.

http://www.independent.co.uk/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Throw in some politics. They're better than flags.

Have you ever been to a country that cares about their country and nationalism? Watch European football, live, then you'll understand.

It's like a war... but without a death toll. Oh wait....

      Not sure if anyone has heard about this, but there is now algae and other bio-engineered bugs that are producing crude oil. Not just biodiesel, but crude oil that can be converted into gasoline. It is also carbon-neutral, because the bugs take in CO2 from the atmosphere.

      I find it rather jaw-dropping myself, because it seems like it has huge potential to change the playing field of this energy problem.

      Anyway, here is the article...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4133668.ece

I don't think there's a wider social or political agenda - it's just short-sighted, short-term greed, like most of the market trading that goes on in the UK (and possibly elsewhere - but I'm a Brit and will confine myself to slagging off my own speculators).

The EU is doing just fine dealing with $5+ for a gallon of gas,

Are you kidding? So far Europe has had truck drivers go on strike against fuel tax, fuel delivery drivers go on strike for a 14% pay increase, annual electricity/gas bills rising at 40%/year threatening to push a quarter of all households (5 million families) into fuel poverty, councils raising the cost of school meals due to the expense of transportation. Even the police are having to cut back on front line staff due to the additional expense. Food bills have risen by 20% since the start of the year.

The advertisements on the sides of public transport buses read "Fed up of paying fuel duty to go nowhere, take the bus instead and stop your wallet from going empty". Otherwise many people are choosing to cycle in to work, especially university staff.

All of this is predicted to send house prices down by at least 10%, and then one minister tells people that should stop being so miserable about the rising cost of living.

Do you mean 'like it was in 1914 and 1939'? As in when the world wars started as opposed to when the US decided to join in?

Well, you have to remember that there was a lot of anti-war sentiment in the US despite the looming danger at the time, and it almost kept us out (until it was too late) .... kind of like today.

But don't worry, anti-war sentiment in the US is growing stronger, and it seems unlikely that we will involve ourselves as the coming European crisis plays itself out, regardless of the consequences. It will be interesting to see where it begins. Maybe it already has as there are already refugees.

Holland?
Amsterdam and Rotterdam are expected to be in about 2015 the first large majority-Muslim cities. Europe or Eurabia?

UK?
Muslim Britain is becoming one big no-go area

Trouble in Londonistan

France?
Muslims are waging civil war against us, claims police union

Why 112 cars are burning every day

Elsewhere?
Where did they all go? Who are they training and leading?

Do you mean 'like it was in 1914 and 1939'? As in when the world wars started as opposed to when the US decided to join in?

Well, you have to remember that there was a lot of anti-war sentiment in the US despite the looming danger at the time, and it almost kept us out (until it was too late) .... kind of like today.

But don't worry, anti-war sentiment in the US is growing stronger, and it seems unlikely that we will involve ourselves as the coming European crisis plays itself out, regardless of the consequences. It will be interesting to see where it begins. Maybe it already has as there are already refugees.

Holland?
Amsterdam and Rotterdam are expected to be in about 2015 the first large majority-Muslim cities. Europe or Eurabia?

UK?
Muslim Britain is becoming one big no-go area

Trouble in Londonistan

France?
Muslims are waging civil war against us, claims police union

Why 112 cars are burning every day

Elsewhere?
Where did they all go? Who are they training and leading?

I don't think rFactor and Live for Speed were out back then, at least I hadn't heard of them anyway. I did stop following PC racing games so much around Gran Turismo 2 though, as there weren't really any decent ones that I remember apart from TOCA, and I wasn't really into touring cars back then (I enjoy watching them on TV now).

BTW before you slag GT4 any more, go read http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/jeremy_clarkson/article552096.ece , I just found it. For someone who really has driven probably every road going sports car in the world around tracks, he seems to think that it is quite an accurate simulation, so I don't know why you think that these other games are any better.

Update: Supreme Court ruling cripples Guantanamo trials. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4123181.ece I'm so sick of hearing the glass houses argument. It's simply bad logic; If we were to never criticize what we perceived as wrong unless we, ourselves were perfect, no one would criticize anyone, and complacency toward our own misgivings would set in. Remember, isolation and nationalism can lead to the worst atrocities imaginable.

Got a decent reference? Seriously, that link is to the 'Daily Mail'.

A lot of people are complaining about this law. Why do you hate our country so much? Why do you want to make things easy for scumbag terrorists who want to kill us all in our beds or on our world class public transport?

There will be checks and balances in place for this to make sure that the police do not abuse these powers and that no innocent people suffer from the outcomes. I mean, lets be honest here - why would you want to WALK on a cycle path? (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article579334.ece) That's just dodgy!

As for the bloke who kept all of his belongings close to him on the tube, he did look a little odd and he had far too much techy stuff on him. (http://gizmonaut.net/bits/suspect.html).

The 82 year old who got arrested under the terrorism act at the labour conference (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4293502.stm) was a known trouble maker having already evaded one lawful regime's attempts to bring him to justice under their current laws back in the 40's, so he probably deserved what happened.

And the bloke who recently spent 6 days in a cell (http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2282045,00.html) for trying to print a document freely available on the Internet should have known better - why do you REALLY need to print stuff these days?
That's killing trees, that is, and deserves this kind of punishment!

In all of the above cases, these people were set free. And it's not like just being arrested can fuck up your life or anything. Or end up with your DNA on file for life. And I'm sure that most of the MPs voting for this bill know what it's like to spend a night or 6 in prison, so they'd never do that to an innocent person, knowing how badly you can come out of that experience.

We actually NAILED on terroristwith this law already - that uppity bitch won't go writing any more bad poetry in the near future, now will she!?

I mean, you have to understand that in a post 9/11 world, things are _different_ now. Al Kayeeda is really really really scary! Ok, sure, there have been fewer attacks than during the IRA years, but that's not the point here! We need this law so that... uhm...

Hang on a sec... This is the UK right, not Iran? Fuck :(

Don't know, but 144,000 people are about to lose their jobs in Brazil thanks to biofuel:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article4083137.ece

I know many native chinese and have even been to Beijing. I can say that you should take Mandarin if you want to learn more about Chinese culture or because you want to travel there, not because your afraid of China becoming a super-power. They're not super-powering anywhere yet.

The same cultural factors that cause them to ship lead paint based toys and glycol laced toothpaste affects them too. It's called corruption. For one thing, the whole place is an environmental disaster. For another, if you look at building quality there it's the same thing -- buildings in China that have been made 15 years ago look like they were made 50 years ago, with water stains and poor quality maintenance. A good example of this? Look at the school buildings that fell down in the earthquake, bricks that fell apart like sand, rotten supports, etc. etc. etc. Classic corruption at work. This also extends to their military.

Let's put it this way, in the U.S. we have occasional overt corruption of politicians and government officials (notably the current administration and their no-bid contracts to Halliburton in Iraq, etc.), and some institutionalized corruption such as lobbying, but it's nothing like China. Imagine politicians like Bush and Cheney, or the democratic congressman with the $90k in his refrigerator were the norm. from the state to local level. Nothing would work, everyone would be promoted due to loyalty rather than competence. In the U.S. there's been tremendous damage just from seven years of the current adminstration, but think about what the country would look like after 50 years of it: that's China. So yeah, if the Chinese were to suddenly change their culture and make it dishonorable to be corrupt rather than just get caught, we'd have problems but as it is China is going nowhere fast.

"The shuttle is a much more expensive spacecraft to operate than the ATV" - Don't be too sure. That ATV is a custom one-off product (averaging at least $250 million each) and its expendable launch vehicle (runs $120 million each) is no real bargain, either. Expressed in $ per pound, future reboost fuel is costing ($250M + $125M) / (4.7 t * 2000 lb/t ) = $40,000 per pound. That's higher than shuttle, which has some economies of scale and reusability working in its bloated favor.

"There may also be a commercial option available for re-supply and reboost in the next 3-4 years through the COTS program" - True, but depending on the tech cavalry to come over the hill is mainly how ISS has become the mess it is in the first place. Based on my limited glimpses behind the curtain, my personal opinion is that SpaceX has a few more spectacular failures to go before they are ready to save the day on ISS.

"There is absolutely nothing wrong with Soyuz or Orion performing crew rotation. Both of these craft have lower operating costs than the shuttle, and lower projected loss of crew probability" - Funny story about projections: ask Elon Musk sometime where the debris field would have been for the maiden SpaceX Falcon 1 if there had been an early final stage shutdown or explosion (Answer - someplace between San Francisco CA and Savannah GA). I was told to not worry (and I did anyway, quite vocally from my padded cell) because the reliability of a Falcon 1 was too high for any failure scenario to be credible, much less the one I was worried about. Heh. Look what happened to the first two Falcon flights - failure, followed by final stage late engine failure. I'd be laughing last if I were laughing at all about that one, which I'm not. Rena, I'm looking at you.

"The dirty little secret ...Total BS. The international partners are well aware of how much reboost the ISS needs and are planning accordingly. There is no secret. Progress, ATV, or the shuttle alone can't do all of the reboost, but combined they can. Also, once construction is finished, the ISS will be boosted to a slightly higher orbit to reduce the effect of drag. Lastly, the ISS is at nearly maximum drag, with only one more solar array to be added, but still growing in mass. Added mass works out net neutral. The momentum reduces the effect of drag just as well as it reduces the effectiveness of reboosts." - Well, I was being metaphorical in saying a dirty little secret - it's more like the elephant in the middle of the room that I think being ignored. Show me any evidence that financial budgeting is being planned for on what it's gonna take to keep this thing up past 2010 and I'll shut up. I contend it's being kept off the public radar because all would agree it doen't make sense to finish if the true maintenance costs to keep it up were known, publicized, and widely understood. Hey, let's focus instead on the fact that there's a Buzz Lightyear toy on this mission!!! Also, the mass isn't really neutral - I agree that by increasing vehicle density it means the reboost has to occur a little less often, but it's still a lot greater load that's gotta be lifted when you do.

"The contention of crooked accounting is unsubstantiated." - I agree that's a low blow. I have absolutely no knowledge of true criminal wrongdoing or fraud and will say that the NASA officials I have worked with over the years are honest, ethical and hardworking. However, the accounting of money flow for Space Station is undeniably a rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul shell game played by all to keep the gravy train rolling under extremely difficult circumstances. I stand by my statement that NOBODY can truly say how much this thing costs.

"The [science]

Britain is to be left out of Europe's high-speed rail revolution because the Government has decided that 200mph trains are bad for the environment.

Despite repeated promises to consider the benefits of a dedicated new line capable of carrying passengers from London to Scotland in less than three hours, ministers are thinking again.

nah its when the real volume of pics from the surface arrive that it gets interesting. Once again we can start looking for wee little people fishing from the rocks...

See more... http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3232035.ece

Shame they did not land near the other probes, then they could have filmed each other. Yes, I know that is scientifically pointless, but you have to admit it would have been cool.

On the same note I always thought that Spirit or Opportunity should have been sent to visit Beagle crater...

I didn't define it, but I did read the definition. In any case, your assertion is just not so, because the more money a person makes, the more they are taxed (proportionally) in pretty much every country, including the US and all of Europe I've seen numbers on. As such the wealth is taken more from the wealthy and spent on programs that help everyone or just the poor. For example, socialized medicine helps everyone in a society to the same degree without significant favoritism, but a wealthy person pays more in taxes to support that program, thus subsidizing it for the poor. Another example would be welfare, where again the wealthy pay more of the tax burden, but are ineligible for any of the benefits.

Sadly, this just ain't so. I agree that that's how it's supposed to work, but it isn't. In Britain, the share of the disposable income of the poor which goes into taxation is much higher than of the rich. This is partly because income tax in the United Kingdom just isn't very progressive, and partly because the rich benefit disproportionally from tax breaks on housing and on pensions. And partly, of course, the rich can afford to pay accountants to minimise their tax liabilities.

Here in rural Scotland, the richest people are the farmers who not only pay virtually no tax but who also receive a state subsidy which averages twice the average wage each; so we really are taxing the poor to pay the rich. It's not what the system is designed to do, of course; but it is the way it's worked out.

Good set of posts, by the way; I've been enjoying them, and mostly agree with you.

If you want to be afraid, just wait until the foreign trucking provisions of NAFTA come through, and we're flooded with Mexican truckers, driving Mexican trucks, completely immune to American safety, and EPA standards, much less CDL standards.

Let me second that from a UK perspective.

Since the inclusion of the former Eastern European states into the EU, we have seen a huge rise in traffic accidents caused by foreign drivers, especially Eastern Europeans with badly maintained rigs.

Disclaimer - I'm not a trucker, but I regularly do about 40,000 miles a year on the roads, and have never had an accident while moving (been rear-ended twice, but hey, what can you do?).

Are you kidding? London has the most surveillance cameras per head and per square foot in the world (and will be using 500,000 CCTV cameras to "police" the 2012 Olympics http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/05/olympic_biometric_screening_plan/ ... one for every four spectators!) We've had posters about CCTV on the streets in London for years now. The sad thing is that nobody notices them any more.

Here in Mr Brown's Brave New World, we have a new law which allows the police to stop and search people on the street without ANY suspicion that they have committed, or are about to commit, any offence whatsoever. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3927040.ece

Mr Brown is also bringing in powers to make it a CRIMINAL offence (i.e. punishable by criminal prosecution and sanctions) to leave school between the ages of 16 and 18 without 'A' Level education (which in the USA would be one step further on than a High School Diploma http://education.answerbox.net/education-search-equivalent-396546332.htm)

Believe me, in matters Orwellian, we here in the UK lead the world. And that's not even touching on the particularly insidious form of Doublespeak invented by the New Labour party here in the mid-nineties and perfected by Mr Blair's spin doctors Campbell and Mandelson.

which is why american foregin policy is despised across most of western europe buddy, try taking a vacation abroad and just ask someone in a bar or cafe....you'll soon figure out how ppl feel. sides, the "strategic" bombing of non strategic infrastructure just so ye can award the multi million dollar reconstruction contracts was also blantent, calculated and corrupt, just look at the 00's of millions of dollars that the likes of Haliburton have made out of this. Even your former head of the Fed, Greenspan, has been quoted as saying it was purely motivated for oil..... open your eyes buddy, your boys are dying over there to line the pockets of the filthy rich. any we keep waving the flags http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2461214.ece

I wouldn't be so quick to point out the Swiss as a sane society... read this and the attendant links:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3818457.ece

Plant rights??!!!

Come on.. do your blah blah blah free Tibet speech, you know you want to.. obviously these tourists are brainwashed and Chinese government approved.

Look at it this way. There's a group which tends to have large families and indoctrinates people to believe in a highly illiberal ideology. Let's forget the religion and skin colour. Imagine if it was purely a political movement that threatens to kill critics even outside the group and interprets criticism in an incredibly wide way. E.g. by telling people to kill authors and cartoonists in far away secular countries even though what they wrote or drew seems innocuous to outsiders. And it targets homosexuals and any women that want to marry outside the group. Men are free to screw unbelieving women. At this point large numbers of its adherents arrive, legally and illegally, in liberal societies with low birth rates. Most of them end up poor and very much under its control. It tells them they are poor because society is too liberal. Potentially it could start to field political candidates in areas where its members are in a majority, and since it tends to deal violently dissenters and brainwash members to be obedient it could tell those members to vote for them at meetings and they probably would.

Doesn't that strike you as a threat to those liberal societies in the long run?

Somehow I doubt it will actually haunt her for her entire life.

People like that are typically too self-absorbed to really care about others, even if they pretend to.

I could be wrong though.

Didn't help Princess Diana when Romuald Rat & company chased her down and killed her. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3702288.ece

i was referring to this

1.7 million people signed the petition against road taxation by GPS satellite tracking. The nearest other petitions only gained 5000 votes.

Then again, 331 MP's of the party proposing this idea were de-elected in the May Day massacre.

I'm supposed to believe that I can get any honest assessment from a site that is as rabidly Zionist as this? How about citing a source that is a bit more honest? I suggest mosaic:

http://www.linktv.org/mosaic/streamsArchive/

And by the way, since you are an insider and all, maybe you can give us the inside scoop on Dimona. Like how much weapons-grade plutonium it produces yearly? Or how many nukes Israel already possesses? Something like 100 - 200 warheads?

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/dimona.htm

And while you're at it, maybe you can explain why Israel refuses to sign on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Non-Proliferation_Treaty

I'm supposed to get excited about Iran making *one* nuke, when Israel has hundreds?

And the last time that I checked, Iran wasn't attacking its neighbors, stealing their land, and ethnic cleansing. In fact, some would even call it holocaust...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3459144.ece

Shame on Israel, and shame on the USA (my country).

I've lived there, and I've seen them. The people who least believe in any imaginary being in the sky are the same people who preach most about its existence, and themselves being his representatives on earth, the latter of which is the reason they need religion.

These people are only there for business, they are businessmen.

I start by more familiar examples, say Dick Cheney. Does anybody believe him to be a true Christian or a ruthless businessman who'll do anything for the sake of profit? Or when he talks of supporting troops, is he telling what he truly means?

In Iran we have our own businessmen. Since the 'Islamic' revolution of 1979, these people have taken over the government in a country where 90%+ of the economy is owned and operated by the government.

A clear example, is the largest of these business entities: Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), most recent bogeyman on CNN/FOX. While the American media focuses on the 'military' part of IRGC's operation, they neglect to mention the much much bigger side of IRGC.
Revolutionary Guards is the single biggest business entity in Iran, they build all the dams, bridges, tunnels and roads, railroad, they operate civilian airports all across the country, they do the largest mining operations, they own many of the largest and most profit generating financial institutions in Iran and this list goes on forever.
Almost half of the members of the current parliament are former IRGC members, Ahmadinejad himself made his way to being Tehran's Mayor and later, Iran's president through IRGC.

Then there's Mesbah Yazdi, a mid-level clergy, known as the mentor of Ahmadinejad, the biggest fucking piece of shit I know in Iran. Plays the same role to Ahmadi Nejad as Dick plays to Bush. But there's another side to this guy, he is also known as "Sultan of Sugar" in Iran. He controls import, distribution and sale of all Sugar in Iran. Believe me, in a country of 70 million population a monopoly on sugar is better than a monopoly on gold mines. He also says that the 'Zionist regime' of Israel is doomed, however nuking them means end of the sweet sugar business for him.

Former president Rafsanjani, former parliament speaker Nategh Noori and many others are businessmen too. They don't give a fuck about religion unless in public when preaching people.

Oh, did you hear the Moral Police Chief of Tehran was recently arrested in a brothel with six girls and they were mocking muslim prayers, naked? That screams of the hypocrisy of the current situation in Iran.

I just want you to think, what benefit does nuking Israel which guarantees a much much harsher reaction from Israel bring to these ruling businessmen? See, that's why Iran, even with nukes is no threat at all to any other country?

All that matters to these people is survival of their business, they are not religious zealots, they don't believe in the second coming or afterlife or crap like what they preach to people. If a day comes where wiping their asses with pages of Quran helps them keep control of their business, then that's what they WILL HAPPILY DO.

Three quarters were from middle-class or upper-class families, two thirds went to college and two thirds were professionals or semi-professionals, often engineers, physicians, architects or scientists. The average age for making an active commitment to violent jihad was 26, and three quarters of the terrorists were married, most of them with children.

I've worked on a number of large sites such as that: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ = hand coded. http://www.thesun.co.uk/ = hand coded. http://www.nhs.uk/ = hand coded. http://www.metrofrance.com/ = hand coded. I could go on but I think you get the idea. Sure those sites use CMS systems and templates that spit out the HTML but it was all hand coded in a text editor before being added to the back end. I would guess that this is actually far more common than using a WYSIWG editor for HTML & CSS creation these days.

One third of the wealth is in the highest ONE PERCENT. the middle class doesn't start anywhere near the 99% mark. The top 10% (which owns 80% of the investment wealth) doesn't start until $350k a year, and that's by 2005 numbers. High capital gains taxes don't hurt people making under $100k because so little of their income is capital gains based. While many of the wealthiest make most of their money via capital gains like warren buffet and hedge fund managers. Now if capital gains goes up 2% that would let income tax come down 1% (yes this is a rough estimation). So anyone who makes less than a third of their income off of capital gains would pay less tax, that means the middle and lower classes.

I don't think too many Americans actually believe that the press is free and unbiased or without an agenda. Most people seem to think they are biased and wroking against them. Ask a conservative and he will say it is liberally biased but when asking a liberal, they will claim the same publications are conservative shills.

It is more likely that there are a lot of people that you are meeting in the US over the Internet or whatever, that simply don't have all the concerns that you do. They use the Internet as a means to fuck off where you seem to think it is a tool or something. This means that you are meeting the slackers which I'm sure exist in every country, it is just different enough for it to stick out in your mind. I know brits that don't even know why WW1 was fought for. The same people who openly accept Cameras on every corner watching your ever move in public. The same people who don't care that their right to keep and bear arms which is probably the best way to control their politicians has been taken for the most part. They don't care that essentially only criminals have guns now and companies are running to the publics defense with bullet proof hoody style sweat shirts.

And don't think this is limited to the American's or British. In AU they are classifying a laser as a weapon to ban it from the majority of people's possession because a minority of people have misused it. I was in a conversation the other day where an Australian citizen told me that if was perfectly fine for the government to decide who needs and doesn't need things.

No, it doesn't stop there, I have more examples but I have showed my point quite well about the so called indoctrination of a countries citizens. Your probably an American, most likely from the north east, Mass area, and think your shift doesn't stink and everyone else's does except that you have some romantic affliction to foreigners and countries other then your own. I guess I should just offer the advice that you need to get out more and get involved with a circle of friends that aren't stupid if this really is a problem your seeing. You can trust me, it isn't something isolated within the US and it isn't something that is wide spread like you think it is.

A true cost for the current 5-year span estimated* ... at 3 trillion dollars

Ah, but times have changed..