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This is somewhat more recent, being from 2002. While it doesn't have the estimates from the high and low numbers that point to the numbers doubling by 2050 and reaching their plateau in the next few years, respectively, it does still settle on the 9-billion-by-2050 level. There was also a report last year, in the later part of spring, that said as much; I remember showing it to my geography professor so she could update some of her numbers which were almost ten years out of date.

Sounds to me like the lesser of two evils--we've all seen the types of politics involved in the UN

What makes this even worse, is that when some one says "the UN should have a greater role in regulating the Internet" they are being vague in the extreme. Have a look at the UN system, there is an incredible range of how various bodies operate - so what exactly are they thinking about? Surely not a politicized talking shop? Then what, something like the ILO, ITU or World Bank? How would it increase technical efficiency? What are the problems that have to be solved and how would the specific institutional proposal address these. There is nothing on the table aside from "we can't trust the Americans" and there doesn't seem to be any evidence to support this. I am a big fan of the UN and impressed at what has been achieved by bodies such as the WHO, but to argue that such bodies make quicker decisions than ICAAN can or are superior technically than other models of standards bodies such as the WWW Consortium without actually proposing anything is a bit premature.

1. Resolution 1440

The area occupied by Israel was largely unoccupied before the late 1800s and early 1900s when Jewish settlers started moving into the area.

Completely incorrect. The inconvenient fact that there were all these people already there is why the Zionists had to engage in a campaign of ethnic cleansing in 1948, and why the "right to return" has been an issue.

When Israel was formed it was the largest single group of Jews in the world and its creation was merely a matter of the British setting borders in the area to best represent the political/racial groups.

Let's get the history straight. At the end of WWI, with the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, the League of Nations decision to place Palestine under the administration of Great Britain. The British double-crossed the Arab population living there and made the Balfour Declaration, commiting Britian to the establishment of Jewish homeland in Palestine. (As with current U.S. support, the primary motivation was strategic interests in the area.)

In the early 20th century there were around 50,000 Jewish settlers living in the region, constituting perhaps 10% of the population. The remaining 90% of the population was, oddly enough. not very pleased at having foreign colonial powers come in and take over. (It should be noted that before WWI, the Jews and Arabs in the region got along reasonably peacefully. It was Zionists outside Palestine who worked for the Balfour Declaration.)

During the 1920s, thanks to British policies about 100,000 Jewish immigrants arrived - a substantial number in a region with a population of about 750,000. The Jewish population more than doubled, rising to over 17%, and tensions began to rise.

In the 1930s, the Nazis began their reign of terror, and many Jews who escaped came to Palestine. By 1939 the Jewish population was over 445,000, out of a total of about 1,500,000 - nearly 30 per cent. By 1947, the total population of Palestine was 1,850,000, including 608,000 Jews.

The large Jewish population in the region at the time of the parition was only the result of decades of concerted effort by the British and by Zionist organizations.

The reason why the State of Israel exists today and why today 1,500,000 Palestinian Arabs are refugees is that, for 30 years, Jewish immigration was imposed on the Palestinian Arabs by British military power until the immigrants were sufficiently numerous and sufficiently well-armed to be able to fend for themselves with tanks and planes of their own. The tragedy in Palestine is not just a local one; it is a tragedy for the world, because it is an injustice that is a menace to the world's peace. -- Arnold J. Toynbee, 1968

It's a very popular myth that there was this vast empty space on the map that the Jewish refugees from WWII could occupy. The truth is that there were plenty of people aready living there, getting screwed over by the British Empire's form of Zionism.

(And indeed, the Jews have been victims in this too, a reasonable desire for a homeland twisted and warped by British and American politics, so that instead of slowly and peacefully building a independant nation, today the "Jewish homeland" is an unsustainable enterprise, existing only because of the support of the United States.)

One group is secular, democratic, multi-racial, and targets military targets.

Israel is Jewish state. Orthodox Judaism is the only legally recognized form of Judaism, and has considerable authority, with control over marriages, burials, and decisions over "who's a Jew". It takes great twisting of the language to regard that as secular.

It takes greater twisting to re

This country isn't in the UN member list.

What kind of government does this Palestine have? Who is its head of state?

We have a treaty with Australia on intellectual property.

It's called the Berne Convention.

So at this point whatever it is one nation does when another nation fails to uphold the Berne Convention should, presumably, kick in.

But, clearly, the Bush administration is still trying to find "the real killers", so they don't have time to get jiggy with Australia.

Stay tuned for further developments.

To answer your question: One wonders how the US government would react if a foreign nation tried a similar approach.

In July 1998 in Rome, 120 Member States of the United Nations adopted a treaty to establish - for the first time in the history of the world - a permanent international criminal court. [source UN].

And this is what the US had to say about it: "This is to inform you, in connection with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court adopted on July 17, 1998, that the United States does not intend to become a party to the treaty. Accordingly, the United States has no legal obligations arising from its signature on December 31, 2000. The United States requests that its intention not to become a party, as expressed in this letter, be reflected in the depositary's status lists relating to this treaty."[source UN]

Thus the US has no intention of ever handing over any of its citizens to even an internationa court. However, the US department of justice (ha ha) has the audacity to try to extradite an Australian national under extra vires conditions.

The US thinks it is the world policeman. But it is not willing to police itself. I am glad Australia finally stood up to the global bully. I hope Australians vote Howard out at the next elections and follow the example set by the brave people of Spain.

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To answer your question: One wonders how the US government would react if a foreign nation tried a similar approach.

In July 1998 in Rome, 120 Member States of the United Nations adopted a treaty to establish - for the first time in the history of the world - a permanent international criminal court. [source UN].

And this is what the US had to say about it: "This is to inform you, in connection with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court adopted on July 17, 1998, that the United States does not intend to become a party to the treaty. Accordingly, the United States has no legal obligations arising from its signature on December 31, 2000. The United States requests that its intention not to become a party, as expressed in this letter, be reflected in the depositary's status lists relating to this treaty."[source UN]

Thus the US has no intention of ever handing over any of its citizens to even an internationa court. However, the US department of justice (ha ha) has the audacity to try to extradite an Australian national under extra vires conditions.

The US thinks it is the world policeman. But it is not willing to police itself. I am glad Australia finally stood up to the global bully. I hope Australians vote Howard out at the next elections and follow the example set by the brave people of Spain.

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We are getting pretty big real fast, and unless someone wants to take steps to de-populate earth in a very unfortunate manner, we are going to have to go somewhere.

I see this line of thinking bandied about quite a bit, but recent projections (1998) show eventual leveling of growth post-2050, with the UN World Population Prospects (2002) noting further negative impact on growth as a result of increased use of birth control and the spread of HIV/AIDS.

One can generate projections based on the 2002 population database, even, though only through 2050.

Yes, world population growth continues, and yes it seems we're still on the steep upward slope of the graph, but if the people responsible for these projections know anything at all, there's more than enough room to believe the present explosive rate of growth will abate in time.

In other words, by the time we all can go "somewhere else" world population may have stabilized with the worst growing pains having already passed.

A freind of mine was preaching to the choir (me) about how inappropriate it is that the RIAA is calling mass copyright infringement "piracy", and how it is an inappropriately biased term given the evils of Blackbeard and the like. Since I agreed, but like my rants to be backed up by better facts, I did some research on piracy of the "Argh, me hearties" kind. To my surprise, it almost fits, if you grant that copyright is "property", Cyberspace is a "place outside the jurisdiction of any State", and that mass copyright infringement falls within "act of depredation". (See what the UN has to say about the Jolly Roger type stuff.)

Skimming the web for some history on this, it seems that the idea of the laws against piracy arose slowly to deal with the problem of crimes committed outside of any national jurisdiction. I was wondering if Mike has any thoughts on this parallel, and what it may imply about how cyberlaw may evolve.

A freind of mine was preaching to the choir (me) about how inappropriate it is that the RIAA is calling mass copyright infringement "piracy", and how it is an inappropriately biased term given the evils of Blackbeard and the like. Since I agreed, but like my rants to be backed up by better facts, I did some research on piracy of the "Argh, me hearties" kind. To my surprise, it almost fits, if you grant that copyright is "property", Cyberspace is a "place outside the jurisdiction of any State", and that mass copyright infringement falls within "act of depredation". (See what the UN has to say about the Jolly Roger type stuff.)

Skimming the web for some history on this, it seems that the idea of the laws against piracy arose slowly to deal with the problem of crimes committed outside of any national jurisdiction. I was wondering if Mike has any thoughts on this parallel, and what it may imply about how cyberlaw may evolve.

While not wanting to diminish the size of this catastrophie, it is nevertheless very important to actually look at the numbers and to put things into perspective.

Please refer to the papers from the United Nations studies on this. They can be found here: UN website on the Chernobyl Disaster

Starting with paragraph 1.26 we find a discussion. In paragraph 1.28 we find that there were some 2000 cases of thyroid cancer attributed to the radiation (iodine). However, thyroid cancer can be treated and there is no real death rate associated with the thyroid cancers.

Next we find that the anticipated development of leukimias has not occured. In paragraph 1.36 we find this quote: unexpected appearance of early childhood thyroid cancer, the unexpected absence of leukaemia stemming from the accident.

In paragraph 1.38 we see that there is a iodine deficiency problem in the population and that addressing this problem in a timely fashion would no doubt have made a considerable difference.

Starting with paragraph 2.01 on page 30, we have a history of the event itself. In paragraph 2.03 I131 is discussed. This isotope has a half life of 8.05 days and were the population given an ample supply of non-radioactive iodine - through the use of simple iodized table salt - then the radioactive version would not have been picked up.

It is really unfortunate that iodine pills could not have been distributed faster!

On page 56 we find more telling information. 28 highly exposed individuals died within 4 months of the accident (see box 4.2). In addition to the end of 1998, 11 others died.

in paragraph 4.18 we have more discussion of the thyroid cancers, and the esitmation is made that the total number could be as high as 8,000.

In the end, while this certainly was a major disaster with an impact on innocent people that should not be underestimated, we are still left with the facts that the media overestimated the impact and the death rate by many orders of magnitude.

In fact some of the pictures clearly demonstrate this. If one looks at the flora and the fauna in the pictures we see groups of wild animals happily running along totally oblivious to the radiation.

These animals have a faster metabolic rate than humans and thus are not as radiation hardy as we are. Yet they are clearly thriving and the world they are living in, and rearing their offspring can only be described as very beautiful.

Yes the radiation is there and yes it should not be scoffed at. But the pictures clearly show that animal life is not impacted all that much. Those horses look pretty healthy and pretty happy to me!

Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Stop bashing people for American Provincialism until you know the score.

I'm known for my rather critical attitude towards the US but if there was a general opinion that MS was buying favour with US politicians then I think it will be a lot worse in the international sphere as the price of a third world ignoramus sitting in some UN committe panel is certainly not higher than that of a corrupt US politician.

How would a "third world ignoramus" end up on a UN committe? Does Kofi Annan fit your view of third world people in the UN system? The FUD about the UN is staggering.

The bulk of any large organization's workforce are paper pushers

What you call "paper pushers", and what they call (according to your good link) "Administration" etc. is indeed the main role of the UN. "Peace keeping" after wars and such is a lot of administration, management, logistics, police, ...

I was in Cambodia when they were organizing the first real elections after Pol Pot. Nobody was starving, and there was no need for emergency aid like food distribution (there was and still is need for medical care though). The job was to set up fair elections, and that certainly wasn't easy.

I don't know how the food situation is in East Timor, but I suspect that there also, food is not the main problem. The difficulty is helping to set up a decent civilian administration to run the country after decades of war.

etc. in other places.

What I want to say is that you cannot dismiss the work the UN does on the ground that it is "paper pushers" work. That's the work they are supposed to be doing. Now I'm sure there are many examples where it is badly done, or in an inefficient way, but from what I've seen they also definitely do manage to get good work done.

And even more direct emergency help like for refugees requires a lot of administrative office work.

Yeah, they do bugger all

Just a few comments:

You only demonstrate the dangers of bad science education, coupled with an unreasonable belief in numbers.

I'll be the first to admit that most of my scientific education sucks. I'm not sure what you mean by an unreasonable belief in numbers. I know my output numbers are only as good as my input numbers, but that's why I asked for people to confirm my input numbers, which several people did.

30 million tons for what? That sounds like a reasonable number for daily worldwide production and a particular definition of industrial processes.

My original source was inaccurate, but RayBender corrected me here and provided some better sources. Essentially, we produce 6-7 billion tons of CO2 a year by doing other things than breathing.

Using again the corrected numbers, we arrive at 6 billion tons (6x10^9) for CO2 produced by human breathing. So you underestimated CO2 production from fossil sources by a factor of 1000 and overestimated breathing CO2 production by a factor of 10.

Someone else (probably RayBender again, he's pretty smart) pointed out that I messed up the weight of the CO2 by a factor of 10, so humans do produce about 7 x 10^9 tons of CO2 in a year, about the same as is produced by industrial processes. You seem to be overestimating the amount of CO2 produced by fossil sources, although I would be interested to see your sources.

Yes, I see it, but you don't. Those numbers don't matter at all because the CO2 produced by breathing is part of a CO2 cycle. That is, all Carbon in our breath comes from food (in the end, from plants), who extracted it from the air while growing. As long as we don't start eating synthetic food, our net CO2 production from breathing is exactly zero.

Now this is one of the more interesting points in this part of the thread so far. As world population grows with advances in industry, there are advances in agriculture and more plants grown to feed everyone, which offsets the increased CO2 from more humans exhaling. Of course, there are some practical problems with this:

1. Most people don't confine their diet to plants. Domesticated food animals are going to be bred in greater numbers as well, which also produce CO2 in breathing. Of course, these animals have to eat too, and so more plants have to be grown to feed them.
2. Plants use oxygen and produce CO2 as well. They do this less than they metabolize CO2 and produce oxygen though.
3. All those hydrocarbons we burn to dump CO2 into the atmosphere were plants once too, so your industrial CO2 emissions were extracted from the air once too.

Just remember, this only works when there is a healthy balance between CO2 producers and CO2 metabolizers. Before the Industrial Revolution the world population was a lot smaller (see here). Population in the year 1800 was about 1,000,000,000 people. Even accounting for agriculture, I don't think there are six times as many plants in the world as there were 200 years ago (remember, we usually kill inedible plants to make room to grow edible ones), so the balance may be disrupted (and industrial emissions probably aren't helping). I don't think reducing industrial emissions will make the difference some people think it will, though. I think the human population is a factor in all of this too.

And what is wrong with that exactly?

If the rights could not be exercised contrary to UN policies, there would be something sinister about article 29, however it clearly states purposes and principles, not policies.

The principles of the UN are clearly laid out in the UN charter.

Yes, just like the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights which says all these great things but then at the bottom adds this disclaimer:

(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Hatch is one person who needs to be voted out of office. I don't like him either and I am a Republican.

Leave the Prez out of this because what you fail to realize is that these laws have to pass both houses of Congress. Dems and Reps can vote how they want to. Its equally the Dems and Reps fault. Its not the Prez fault these laws passed.

So the Canadian d00d was wanted in Syria. Serves him right. We are just recognizing International Law. When you get a chance actually read the United Nations Security Council's Resolution 678. You can read it here. We were acting based on the UN laws.

Ignorance may be a bliss, but it can be unhealthy as well.

Check out two international studies. Unscear report and UN report. UN also has pretty clueful page on chernobyl in general. We're talking about moderate increase in occurrence of cancer with some 10000-20000 cases attributed to the accident. Fatality is pretty low, thought, so casualties are some 100s.

The mandate was there. The Security Council just tried to change its mind, and was unable to marshal the votes to do so.

You are right about the cost changing depending on the location (California is clearly higher than say Washington State). You are also right in saying that rent is perhaps the #1 component of the cost.

I guess cost of living would be based on the consumer price index (CPI). CPI is basically the cost of a basket of goods. Let me see if I can find something ... ok... looking for the cost of living is much harder than I thought...

Here is what I found online. It isn't perfect. It doesn't include the cities we need and the conditions vary. Most of these are indexes so they are relative to some base location (usualy USA).

UN Retail Price Index for their employees

UN Retail Price Index (click on retail price index link on that page):
(as of June 2003)
USA (New York) = 100
USA (Washington, DC) = 91 (96 without housing)
India (New Delhi) = 73 (85 without housing)


This index is for UN employees and may not be reflective of true costs (since bureaucrats may have higher costs than native population eg. foreign language schools, extra security, etc).

Expat Forum The index on this page seems weird. Cost seems way too high for most countries but anyway...

USA=100
India = 93

FT Worldwide Cost of Living

Check it out.

(as of Sept 2001)

USA (New York)=101.88
USA (Washington)=101.63
India (New Delhi) = 82.08
(there are more US cities listed for the older date of Nov 2000)

Conclusion

I hate to say it but the conclusion is that everything is inconclusive right now. On average it seems New Delhi (which is NOT the IT capital) is around 7% to 27% cheaper than New York (not exactly known for IT). That 7% figure is unreliable IMO. So on average it seems to be around 20% cheaper. So someone in New Delhi will automatically have a 20% cost advantage. The figures are also a bit old so they are not necessarily reflective of the present (however the general trend should be valid).

If the figures are to be believed, I guess I was kind of wrong. I expected greater cost of living diffreences. Right now it is only 20% to 25%. I personally think the cost gap should be even greater. I think more research needs to be done to come up with a conclusive answer. It would also help if more recent figures with relevant cities are used. (Can someone else reading this and with free time do more research? Thanks :) )

Anyway, I guess the question is: would you be willing to take a 25% pay cut? OR are you ok with the US government subsidizing IT workers by 25%?

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Ummm, can't they both just leave me alone? You make it an either/or choice.

The original guy came up with the proposition of one or the other. So I was picking one. In reality, I don't want ANYONE spying. However, if one has to pick the government is ALWAYS worse.

simple. Sometimes the government has to spy on innocent people. I hate that, but I know it is neccessary.

Can you explain why? Show me why the government has to spy on innocent people.

I hate to say it but your view (which, unfortunately, is held by many citizens of hte world) is precisely why governments have killed more people than all the private criminals combined! You have just been brainwashed by your environment (possibly by government propaganda) to believe that. You are a conformist!

Your view is no different than the view held by many a few hundread years ago, where it was deemed necessary to lynch and convict accused criminals without any proof. It was a widely held "principle". In addition, you can even find intellectuals justifying the need for the police to "randomly" arrest people on some bogus charge. The reason the US Constitution (Fourth Amendmant) (along with other countries including the UN Declaration of Human Rights (article 12)) prevent unreasonable search without charge is to prevent that. The Founding Fathers of USA, who were all radical liberals, knew that the generally accepted view of letting the government/police search at will (which was the norm) was unnecessary. However, if you took a poll of the citizens, I'm sure 90% would say the police should have the right to search at will.

I'm not saying that you support searches without any cause (after all, it is against the US Constitution and the UN Constitution, which pretty much covers the vast majority of the world). All I'm saying is that your preconceived notion that the police/goverment NEEDS to spy on citizens is the same line of thinking. My view is a minority view I admit. BUT I'm sure my view will triumph over yours in the end...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

And therefore Cuba would have been justified to launch the nukes based in Cuba because the US conducted an act of war? (The blocade)

Actually no our blockade of Cuba during the missile crisis was not an act of war. In the first place the blockade was limited to offensive weapons. We did not blockade ships leaving Cuban ports or ships attempting to enter Cuban ports with non-military (food, medicine, oil) cargos. In the second place we had every other nation in the entire Western Hemisphere (not to mention our NATO allies) backing us up. To quote from a website on the matter:

More important from a legal point of view, Kennedy asked our neighbors in the Organization of American States to both authorize and participate in our naval blockade of Cuba (termed a "Quarantine Against Offensive Weapons" to make it sound less belligerent). That elevated the blockade to an act of regional self-defense under international law.

The last sentance of that paragraph is the most important. The Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba were a threat to the entire Western World -- not just the United States.

Likewise, Article 51 of the UN Charter states:

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

I would also quote from this website from your reading pleasure:

Under Article 51, the triggering condition for the exercise of self-defense is the occurrence of an armed attack ("if an armed attack occurs"). Notwithstanding the literal meaning of that language, some, though not all, authorities interpret Article 51 to permit anticipatory self-defense in response to an imminent attack. A generally recognized guide to the conditions for anticipatory self-defense is Daniel Webster's statement regarding the Caroline affair of 1837: Self-defense is justified only when the necessity for action is "instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation." (Letter from Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, to Lord Ashburton, August 6, 1842, reprinted in 2 John Bassett Moore, A Digest of International Law 409, 412 (1906)). A modern version of this approach is found in Oppenheim's International Law: Ninth Edition, 1991, p. 412 (emphasis added):

The development of the law, particularly in the light of more recent state practice, in the 150 years since the

Caroline incident suggests that action, even if it involves the use of armed force and the violation of another states territory, can be justified as self defence under international law where:

1. an armed attack is launched, or is immediately threatened, against a state's territory or forces (and probably its nationals);
2. there is an urgent necessity for defensive action against that attack;
3. there is no practicable alternative to action in self-defence, and in particular another state or other authority which has the legal powers to stop or prevent the infringement does not, or cannot, use them to that effect;
4. the action taken by way of self-defence is limited to what is necessary to stop or prevent the infringement, i.e. to

The Vatican is not a member of the United Nations. It has a non-voting observer to the UN.

What makes these people the experts?

Ok. What makes you an expert, then?

Finally. After Saddam gassed the kurds and those awful pictures got transmitted the UN drafted a resolution condeming Saddam. The resolution never passed becasue the Reagan Administration (Reagan, Baker, Bush sr, Cheney etc) vetoed it.

You have made this claim before, but it just isn't true. Out of the 5 UN resolutions that condemned Iraq for it's chemical weapons use (540, 582, 589, 612, and 620), none of them were vetoed, and ALL of them passed. When Rumsfeld went to Iraq in 1983, he explicitly cautioned Iraq to not use chemical weapons, and we publically condemned their use in the Iran/Iraq war in 1984.

Please tell us exactly which resolution you think it is that we vetoed.

The problem is not that saddam isn't a bad man. The problem is that if you define iraq as rogue because of what saddam did in the 80's, half the planet is rogue. China is rogue, because of what they're doing in tibet, and how they disregard basic human rights like freedom of speech. Saudi-arabia is rogue, because of government ties to terrorism. Israel is rogue, for what they're doing to the palestinians (not that the palestinians are angels, but two wrongs don't make a right). And so on...

Some people might even call the US rogue, for blatantly disregarding basic laws like the international rights of pow's and human rights in how they treat captured "enemy combatants". Examples of infringed rights: pow's have a right to be returned to their country after the cessation of major hostilities. Most people captured in afghanistan haven't been returned, even if there's no proof they did anything else than defend their country. Another example: the way people in guatanamo bay are presumed guilty and are refused a fair trial (the lucky ones will go before military tribunals, but I wouldn't expect impartiality from those, the unlucky ones will just stay locked up indefinitely). Let me quote from the declaration of human rights:

Article 9.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10.

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11.

(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

To sum up my point, cleaning up the world brute-force would be nothing short of WWIII. It's an inherently flawed strategy. You cause much more damage than the problems you're trying to fix. Any solution towards world peace needs to be political (look back in history, how many times has piece resulted from a treaty, and how many times has it resulted from total military victory?). And I wouldn't go around putting blame on other countries, because every country in the world is rogue in some way or other.

Besides, why is it ok that politicians lie? As a people, we shouldn't accept that, and we should hold them accountable. It was right to go after clinton for lying while president, it's right to go after bush for the very same reason now. A leader of the world should never, ever, knowingly lie, even if the truth is embarassing or damaging. If we can't trust our leaders, who can we trust?

Mr. Blix' speech on 1/27 2003:

Iraq has on the whole cooperated rather well so far with UNMOVIC in this field. The most important point to make is that access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect and with one exception it has been prompt. We have further had great help in building up the infrastructure of our office in Baghdad and the field office in Mosul. Arrangements and services for our plane and our helicopters have been good. The environment has been workable.

or that there weren't any terrorists in Iraq

It doesn't work that way. If you want to invade a country because you claim it harbors terrorists, the burden of proof lays with you.

or that there are more people dead in the last 6 months than the previous 6 months.

Sorry, can't do that as long as the US keeps the Iraqi casualty numbers secret.

Point 2 -

Sigh, you know - this U.N bashing gets old very quickly. The U.N is a forum where sovereign governments can get together to attempt joint decision making. Is it fool-proof? hell no.

Are there areas where intergovernmental coordination is useful? hell yes. The ITU (a UN body) makes a decent stab of coordinating radio frequency usage worldwide, the world health organization, the UN high commission on refugees are probably responsible for saving millions of lives.

Is the U.N a branch of the illuminati intent on a single world government? No. But yes there is a place for international rules.

"This will mean censorship of the Internet" - you know that right? When you say censorship, you mean like - what- effective controls on Spam, yes? no? you mean something else?

I think you summarise your issues where you say: "the UN is a little too socialist for my likes". Now, I leave it to you to show which aspects of the U.N charter are socialist.

Here's the charter for you... and here is the text of chapter 1:

Article 1

The Purposes of the United Nations are:

To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;

To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and

To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

Article 2

The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.

The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.

All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.

All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.

The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.

Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll.

Sorry, but am I the only one who identifies this as flaimbait?

What gives occidental countries a greater right to speech over other cultures? The West may have the power to impose their views upon others, but does this power legitimize imposing their views?

Consider the example of the WIPO, which is controlled by western countries. Western ideas of "intellectual property" are forced upon African and Asian countries, meaning they cannot produce medications for their own people, but have to buy medication from Western corporations at artificially-inflated prices. Had these smaller nations not been strong-armed into signing agreements on intellectual property, they would have been able to afford medication for their people.

This phrase strikes me as particularly frightening:

It would advance anti-Jewish attitudes, probably going as far as to restrict Israel!

Have you not considered that perhaps Israel should be restricted, as with all other governments of the world? Israel (one of the world's worst human-rights violators), is subject to the same international laws as other countries. These laws are agreed upon at international conferences such as the one proposed, and these conferences should receive participants from all manner of nations, even those that believe Israel illegitimate.

It is, of course, easier to sign an agreement than to enforce it, so these agreements are regularly disregarded by the most powerful nations (Israel declaring that the Geneva convention does not apply to suspected terrorists, the US inventing the term "illegal combattant" to circumvent international law regarding prisoners of war), but the first step to ensuring that all nations are held responsible for their actions is unilateraly agreeing upon standards to uphold.

At first, I agreed that no useful regulation can come of this summit and that the Internet should remain absolutely unregulated. However, while formulating this post, I begin to see what "restrictions" against Israel you may fear. Whereas in the US computer crime is performed mostly by harmless vandals and warez groups, in the Middle East network attacks are often motivated by politics. What international law stops the Mossad from attacking the network infrastructure of an opposing political group or funding vandals to deface opposition websites? At the moment, no such agreement exists.

If this conference forces powerful nations to listen to the viewpoints of the rest of the world, some good may come of it.

Call me a liar why don't you. This was someone who I personally knew who told me this, not something that I read in a paper.

No offense, but these uncorroborated 3rd person "friend of mine" stories often stray from the truth. My skepticism is justified.

Oh and regarding your "myth", just do a quick google: Google results for "iraq sanctions children pencils"

Ah- the very scientific 'number of google results' method. That gives us some great information from sites like geocities and the International Action Center ("Information, Activism, and Resistance to U.S. Militarism, War, and Corporate Greed"- sounds like a pretty open minded source of information to me).

Look at some of the links there, and who they're quoting. I'll just link to one article, written by a Seattle Times correspondent

Actually, that was not a Seattle Times correspondent. That opinion piece was written by Denis J. Halliday, the former UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq.

Now, I don't pretend to know more about what was going on in Iraq than Mr. Halliday. All I know is what is written in the actual resolutions.

Like in resolution 661 that established the sanctions, that says that the sanctions do not include any "supplies intended strictly for medical purposes, and, in humanitarian circumstances, foodstuffs, to any person or body in Iraq or Kuwait or to any person or body for the purposes of any business carried on in or operated from Iraq or Kuwait."

Or in resolution 666 that created a full time agency to monitor the humanitarian situation in Iraq, paying special attention to children, pregnant women, the sick, and the elderly, and it establishes an office to provide aid to the Iraqi people if this agency finds the need.

Or resolutions 706 and 712 that urge Saddam to provide more food and medicine to his people, and establish the Oil for Food program to help.

I think it is clear that innocent Iraqis did suffer under the sanctions. I also think it is clear that the blame for this rests solely on Saddam. In spite of the UN's efforts, he purposely starved his people, and used the sanctions as propaganda against the United States. Unfortunately it looks like many people, including you, were not able to see through his propaganda.

Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Resolution 540, which "condemns all violations of international humanitarian law, in particular, the provisions of the Geneva Conventions" was passed by a vote of 12-0 with Malta, Nicaragua, and Pakistan abstaining.

Resolution 582, which "deplores... the use of chemical weapons" was passed unanimously.

Resolution 598, which also "deplores... the use of chemical weapons", and was also passed unanimously.

Resolution 612, which "condemns vigorously" the continued use of chemical weapons, was adopted unanimously.

Resolution 620, which "condemns resolutely" Iraq's use of chemical weapons, passed unanimously.

Also consider this. Bush has created a brand new govt branch. He has grown the size of the govt more then anybody else in recent history.

We still only have three branches in our government (exective, legislative, judicial), so I assume you are talking about the new Department of Homeland Security (under the executive branch). But that wasn't as much growth as it was a reorganization, and besides, providing for homeland security is one of the most important roles of the Federal government.

He has also (almost) created the largest entitlement program since the advent of medicare and social security (the drug benefit). He is running enourmous deficits. Despite all that he is the darling of the conservatives who supposedly are for smaller govt and fiscal responsibility.

You obviously don't listen very closely to conservatives, then. They have been extremely critical of the spending increases and entitlement programs that Bush has supported.

Resolution 540, which "condemns all violations of international humanitarian law, in particular, the provisions of the Geneva Conventions" was passed by a vote of 12-0 with Malta, Nicaragua, and Pakistan abstaining.

Resolution 582, which "deplores... the use of chemical weapons" was passed unanimously.

Resolution 598, which also "deplores... the use of chemical weapons", and was also passed unanimously.

Resolution 612, which "condemns vigorously" the continued use of chemical weapons, was adopted unanimously.

Resolution 620, which "condemns resolutely" Iraq's use of chemical weapons, passed unanimously.

Also consider this. Bush has created a brand new govt branch. He has grown the size of the govt more then anybody else in recent history.

We still only have three branches in our government (exective, legislative, judicial), so I assume you are talking about the new Department of Homeland Security (under the executive branch). But that wasn't as much growth as it was a reorganization, and besides, providing for homeland security is one of the most important roles of the Federal government.

He has also (almost) created the largest entitlement program since the advent of medicare and social security (the drug benefit). He is running enourmous deficits. Despite all that he is the darling of the conservatives who supposedly are for smaller govt and fiscal responsibility.

You obviously don't listen very closely to conservatives, then. They have been extremely critical of the spending increases and entitlement programs that Bush has supported.

Resolution 540, which "condemns all violations of international humanitarian law, in particular, the provisions of the Geneva Conventions" was passed by a vote of 12-0 with Malta, Nicaragua, and Pakistan abstaining.

Resolution 582, which "deplores... the use of chemical weapons" was passed unanimously.

Resolution 598, which also "deplores... the use of chemical weapons", and was also passed unanimously.

Resolution 612, which "condemns vigorously" the continued use of chemical weapons, was adopted unanimously.

Resolution 620, which "condemns resolutely" Iraq's use of chemical weapons, passed unanimously.

Also consider this. Bush has created a brand new govt branch. He has grown the size of the govt more then anybody else in recent history.

We still only have three branches in our government (exective, legislative, judicial), so I assume you are talking about the new Department of Homeland Security (under the executive branch). But that wasn't as much growth as it was a reorganization, and besides, providing for homeland security is one of the most important roles of the Federal government.

He has also (almost) created the largest entitlement program since the advent of medicare and social security (the drug benefit). He is running enourmous deficits. Despite all that he is the darling of the conservatives who supposedly are for smaller govt and fiscal responsibility.

You obviously don't listen very closely to conservatives, then. They have been extremely critical of the spending increases and entitlement programs that Bush has supported.

Resolution 540, which "condemns all violations of international humanitarian law, in particular, the provisions of the Geneva Conventions" was passed by a vote of 12-0 with Malta, Nicaragua, and Pakistan abstaining.

Resolution 582, which "deplores... the use of chemical weapons" was passed unanimously.

Resolution 598, which also "deplores... the use of chemical weapons", and was also passed unanimously.

Resolution 612, which "condemns vigorously" the continued use of chemical weapons, was adopted unanimously.

Resolution 620, which "condemns resolutely" Iraq's use of chemical weapons, passed unanimously.

Also consider this. Bush has created a brand new govt branch. He has grown the size of the govt more then anybody else in recent history.

We still only have three branches in our government (exective, legislative, judicial), so I assume you are talking about the new Department of Homeland Security (under the executive branch). But that wasn't as much growth as it was a reorganization, and besides, providing for homeland security is one of the most important roles of the Federal government.

He has also (almost) created the largest entitlement program since the advent of medicare and social security (the drug benefit). He is running enourmous deficits. Despite all that he is the darling of the conservatives who supposedly are for smaller govt and fiscal responsibility.

You obviously don't listen very closely to conservatives, then. They have been extremely critical of the spending increases and entitlement programs that Bush has supported.

Resolution 540, which "condemns all violations of international humanitarian law, in particular, the provisions of the Geneva Conventions" was passed by a vote of 12-0 with Malta, Nicaragua, and Pakistan abstaining.

Resolution 582, which "deplores... the use of chemical weapons" was passed unanimously.

Resolution 598, which also "deplores... the use of chemical weapons", and was also passed unanimously.

Resolution 612, which "condemns vigorously" the continued use of chemical weapons, was adopted unanimously.

Resolution 620, which "condemns resolutely" Iraq's use of chemical weapons, passed unanimously.

Also consider this. Bush has created a brand new govt branch. He has grown the size of the govt more then anybody else in recent history.

We still only have three branches in our government (exective, legislative, judicial), so I assume you are talking about the new Department of Homeland Security (under the executive branch). But that wasn't as much growth as it was a reorganization, and besides, providing for homeland security is one of the most important roles of the Federal government.

He has also (almost) created the largest entitlement program since the advent of medicare and social security (the drug benefit). He is running enourmous deficits. Despite all that he is the darling of the conservatives who supposedly are for smaller govt and fiscal responsibility.

You obviously don't listen very closely to conservatives, then. They have been extremely critical of the spending increases and entitlement programs that Bush has supported.

Just admit you hate the US.
Unfortunately for you I don't hate US, nor any country from Europe, as you seems to do.

Usually I would not reply this kind of message, since it seems like a troll answer, but I must do that to make my position clear: I do not like most US government actions taken in under-developed countries in the last 200 years. It doesn't mean I like the way my country is being used by its own politicians, specifically the last dictartorship period (1964-1990), specially the seventies. The same opinion about many european countries in the past.

But there is something I have nothing against: the US people. Why? I have a business visa that allowed me to really know american people, some of them I confess are good friends of mine.

So let me come back to the topic: many of you already knows about Order 39 of Mr. Bremer. If you do not, just google it ;-) This is the kind of action I'm talking about
In the other hand, I really do like the UN plans for the International Year of Rice 2004 and many other UN initiatives. Supporting poor countries in producing their own food is a good solutions instead of distributing food. Anyway I think US may continue this kind of action while not effectively helping to restore peace, nor giving conditions to make the country economicaly independent, what really solves the problem. UN did not have very good results on both in the past, the Security Council is powerful enougth to not care about it. But other members of UN are trying hard on those priorities and I'll give them a chance. Even some people from US staff at UN are trying to do the right thing. And I subscribe to their ideas and efforts.

About da Silva efforts in being an administratively responsible president, I agree that it's not good to see a few billion dollars going to other country for the sole purpose of paying licenses instead of being spent on the internal economy. If Brazil did not have so many problems related to poverty to solve, it would not be a big issue, but it's not the case.

Another issue about poverty: most poor countries were very rich colonies and also the most productive ones. Sadly almost every good administered colony usually became a very poor country, which went through (and still suffers from) dictatorship and civil war periods.

Try the UN - they have people flying all over the place all the time. They will work primarily in Africa, South America and Asia (ie rural development areas) and you will be doing stuff such as setting up wireless broadband networks, teaching locals how to use technology, and pushing lots of Linux and Open source Software to its limits. You won't make lots of money, but you will gain lots of experience, get the good feeling that you are actually using technology to help those who most need it, and you get to see some interesting places.

The UN job site is currently showing 20 IT related jobs. Have fun.

No world wars in 50+ years

No world wars? Do you recall the Cold War? Or more recently, the (insert brassy fanfare) "War on Terror"?!? Just because it wasn't an all-out, killeverythingthatmoves kind of war doesn't mean that hostilities didn't occur, or that it didn't involve the "world".

Has negotiated and enforced many peace treaties throughout that time.

And it has failed to negotiate and enforce just as many. Look up a country called Rhodesia and the history of the land it inhabited. No UN intervention there, and we're still seeing the fallout in central Africa. Or better yet, look at the strength of UN resolutions at work in Israel. There have been UN sanctions for decades against Israel, and it hasn't stopped the crimes one bit.

Economic and other sanctions have had positive effects on some countries.

Such sanctions have allowed dictators to divert funds from aid programs to build military infrastructure, enabled "ethnic cleansing" such as that in former Yugoslavia, and created situations leading to attacks on the US and other member nations.

WHO has done some fantastic work in the 3rd world.

Work which includes proposing some of the most restrictive "health" laws ever seen.

Is the world's first supra-national organization and, more remarkably, has had its power seriously challenged only a few times.

First?!? Even the UN admits that the League of Nations existed. And as for serious challenges to UN authority, you can look at the record of the last 50 years to see the endless challenges and flaunts of that authority. The UN has been ignored from Korea to Iraq.

Has, respectively, saved the countries of Korea, Kuwait,and many others i'm forgetting by using multinational forces to defeat a common agressor enemy.

The UN saved Korea? The Korean War didn't end. It is still in a negotiated ceasefire, and is still a divided country. As for Kuwait, the country it was ceased to exist when they were invaded. To say that the UN saved these countries is to ignore the facts. It would be more proper to say that the UN helped to alleviate some of the destruction caused by internal or external aggressors, and in some cases aided the victimized society to rid itself of the invading force.

I'm not trying to say that the UN is a failure. However, the current political and economic climate make the organization more of a pawn to a few powerful nations than a true supranational entity charged with protecting the peace and enforcing international law. While it has contributed somewhat to international stability, it can be seen to offer selective stability, chiefly for Western nations that expect UN backing for their own whims.

</offtopic rant>

you can't take away any of the rights and freedoms agreed to by the UN nations in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights... and really, neither should you... read it over... some of those are actually kind of nice.

I'll assume that the "some of those" rights you mention do not include article 27(2), which doesn't seem to limit the duration of such "material interests," opening up the possibility for a country to enact perpetual copyright and for Disney to lobby for a "harmonization" with that country's copyright term, just like the EU and USA "harmonized" with Germany's life-plus-70 term.

Article 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

"but the fact he's arguing that Saddam has had them in the apparently recent past and that this was and is a serious issue does not make him a blind Bush supporter or war-mongerer."

His insistance on this fact despite the lack of any evidence does make him deluded though.

So wait a second. You reject the fact that Saddam ever had weapons of mass destruction? Or you're saying they were all destroyed 10 years ago? Obviously I can't prove whether or not the later is true. The evidence that they had them recently is the fact that they had them 10 years ago, and there's no reason to believe they were all destroyed.

Iraq has had at least a decade of scrutiny by the US and the UN. We overflew them daily during both the Bush Sr, Clinton and Bush Jr administrations.

Nonsense. We overflew them in the no-fly zone (where they shot at us to try to kill us). We sent some drones past that, most likely, but that's hardly scrutiny. The US government can't even track anthrax spores which were held inside the United States and sent through the US post office. You think they can track them in a country which orders its military to kill US officials? No way.

After all that not one shred of evidence exists that UN had any WMDs let alone anything in quantity to threaten the US.

I assume you mean Iraq, not UN? Here's evidence that Iraq had WMDs:

When passing the report to the Permanent Representative, I would propose to invite his particular attention, and through him that of the authorities in Baghdad, to three key aspects of the report: "all analytical data provided by the three laboratories were again considered conclusive and valid"; "the existence of VX degradation products conflicts with Iraq's declarations that the unilaterally destroyed special warheads had never been filled with chemical warfare agents"; and, the recommendations of the group of experts that the Special Commission invite Iraq "to explain first the origin and history of the fragments analysed by all three laboratories and then the presence of degradation products of nerve agents" and "to explain the presence of a compound known as VX stabilizer and its degradation product, and to provide more information on the Iraqi efforts during the period from mid-1988 to the end of 1990 to develop and produce VX by improved synthetic routes".

Now will you stop making such stupid claims?

As for whether Iraq had WMD in quantity to threaten the US. Well, they certainly had the quantity to threaten the US, as any quantity of WMD is enough to threaten the US. I don't think they were an actual threat, though, because they didn't have the ability to deploy those WMD on the US.

Why shouldn't Anthony's belief be challanged? Why shouldn't I presume that the only reason he believes this fact is because he unconditionally believes what this administration tells him? He has not even attempted to bother pointing to any evidence for his viewpoint whatsoever.

Iraq had WMD. They lied about those WMD over and over and over again. They claimed the weapons never existed, then we found out they lied, so they claimed they destroyed them, then we found out they lied, so they claimed the ones we found were the only ones, then we found out they lied, then they claimed our tests were incorrect, so we retested and found out they lied. They lied over and over and over again, so my respect for their statements is 0. Without evidence that the weapons were destroyed, I'm going to assume they still existed. My evidence is right here.

Most liberterians I know are rational people.

I have to disagree with you on that one.

I have a very hard time believing that Anthony is a libertarian.

Good. I'm not. Not even close. And if you read the AC's post you'd realize he never said I was. He

"but the fact he's arguing that Saddam has had them in the apparently recent past and that this was and is a serious issue does not make him a blind Bush supporter or war-mongerer."

His insistance on this fact despite the lack of any evidence does make him deluded though.

So wait a second. You reject the fact that Saddam ever had weapons of mass destruction? Or you're saying they were all destroyed 10 years ago? Obviously I can't prove whether or not the later is true. The evidence that they had them recently is the fact that they had them 10 years ago, and there's no reason to believe they were all destroyed.

Iraq has had at least a decade of scrutiny by the US and the UN. We overflew them daily during both the Bush Sr, Clinton and Bush Jr administrations.

Nonsense. We overflew them in the no-fly zone (where they shot at us to try to kill us). We sent some drones past that, most likely, but that's hardly scrutiny. The US government can't even track anthrax spores which were held inside the United States and sent through the US post office. You think they can track them in a country which orders its military to kill US officials? No way.

After all that not one shred of evidence exists that UN had any WMDs let alone anything in quantity to threaten the US.

I assume you mean Iraq, not UN? Here's evidence that Iraq had WMDs:

When passing the report to the Permanent Representative, I would propose to invite his particular attention, and through him that of the authorities in Baghdad, to three key aspects of the report: "all analytical data provided by the three laboratories were again considered conclusive and valid"; "the existence of VX degradation products conflicts with Iraq's declarations that the unilaterally destroyed special warheads had never been filled with chemical warfare agents"; and, the recommendations of the group of experts that the Special Commission invite Iraq "to explain first the origin and history of the fragments analysed by all three laboratories and then the presence of degradation products of nerve agents" and "to explain the presence of a compound known as VX stabilizer and its degradation product, and to provide more information on the Iraqi efforts during the period from mid-1988 to the end of 1990 to develop and produce VX by improved synthetic routes".

Now will you stop making such stupid claims?

As for whether Iraq had WMD in quantity to threaten the US. Well, they certainly had the quantity to threaten the US, as any quantity of WMD is enough to threaten the US. I don't think they were an actual threat, though, because they didn't have the ability to deploy those WMD on the US.

Why shouldn't Anthony's belief be challanged? Why shouldn't I presume that the only reason he believes this fact is because he unconditionally believes what this administration tells him? He has not even attempted to bother pointing to any evidence for his viewpoint whatsoever.

Iraq had WMD. They lied about those WMD over and over and over again. They claimed the weapons never existed, then we found out they lied, so they claimed they destroyed them, then we found out they lied, so they claimed the ones we found were the only ones, then we found out they lied, then they claimed our tests were incorrect, so we retested and found out they lied. They lied over and over and over again, so my respect for their statements is 0. Without evidence that the weapons were destroyed, I'm going to assume they still existed. My evidence is right here.

Most liberterians I know are rational people.

I have to disagree with you on that one.

I have a very hard time believing that Anthony is a libertarian.

Good. I'm not. Not even close. And if you read the AC's post you'd realize he never said I was. He

I agree with this.

However, I'm not blinded by that love and I see and recognise its shortcomings, just like many Americans do.

I agree with this, as stated in both my initial post and my reply to yours.

It's ironic that you label me anti-American, because that's the very label that those Americans get tarred with by people who'd rather not respect the freedom of expression of those who question the status quo.

I didn't label you as anti-american because you questioned the status quo. I labelled you anti-american because you vehemently attacked my statement that I love my country. That freedom of speech should apply to everyone - you, me, and the people who *do* hate the ideals upon which the US was founded.

Now, if you can't see that you can both love something and yet find room for improvement in it at the same time then perhaps you should stop reading my post right now.
(snipped for brevity)

I agree with every sentiment in this paragraph. I do, however, love my country, and will continue to do so until, $DEITY forbid, it becomes apparent to me that our government is broken beyond repair. At that time, I'll happily support overthrowing it.

America has shortcomings.
(snipped again for brevity)

Again, I agree with everything in this paragraph. Though I am not a liberal by any means, I agree with and support certain portions of the "liberal agenda." Just because we don't agree with one another all the time doesn't mean either of us is evil or amoral - it just means we see things a little differently. It appears to me that our opinions don't differ all that greatly. And when we do differ, at the risk of wearing out an old cliche, while I disagree with what you say, I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

These are countries routinely hit by famine, where the land is so barren that they can't even grow enough food to feed their people, and where, on top of all that, civil war has raged for far too long.

A war, civil or not, that lasts one day, is one day too long.

You're comparing your fellow citizens to people who may have to travel days to find water, who dreams for their children don't involve universities or good careers but simply an existance where they won't have to worry about where their next meals are coming from, that the years of famine, disease, war and death will come to an end.

My countrymen are not fundamentally any better or worse than the people of Haiti, Sierra Leone, or The Republic of the Congo. I may be misreading you, but it almost seems like you're hinting that the people of the industrialized world are somehow superior to the people who live in these places. You want me to compare the US to other industrialized nations, so I shall. I found more recent GDP figures from the United Nations Statistics Division.

Let's start with the Russian Federation - the largest of the former Soviet republics, and the 4th richest. Their per-capita GDP is listed as $2,139. The wealthiest of the former Soviet republics, Estonia, has a listed per-capita GDP of $4,065. China's is $918, not counting Hong Kong, which is relatively wealthy at a per-capita GDP of $23,499. Moving on to nations where the people are considered to be free and wealthy, the UK's per-capita GDP is $24,186; France's is $22,168; Japan's is $32,809; Sweden's is $24,766.
Germany: $22,507.
Canada: $22,385.
Spain: $14,266.
New Zealand, one of the places you mentioned before as a wealthy industrialized nation, is actually doing relatively well; their

Radio is the most widespread communications technology in the world. It can be received in the most remote rural areas, in areas without regular electricity, using very cheap equipment. You don't have to be literate or go through any kind of training period to use a radio, you just turn the thing on.

Whenever the United Nations tries to beef up its webcasting and other multimedia capabilities of its website, member states in the developing world constantly remind the UN to not forget the continuing importance of radio.

Radio is the most widespread communications technology in the world. It can be received in the most remote rural areas, in areas without regular electricity, using very cheap equipment. You don't have to be literate or go through any kind of training period to use a radio, you just turn the thing on.

Whenever the United Nations tries to beef up its webcasting and other multimedia capabilities of its website, member states in the developing world constantly remind the UN to not forget the continuing importance of radio.

Even worse is the frickin United Nations. They use Real for both their live webcasts and radio streams (they have one token mp3 stream, but everything else is .ram)