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That list is entirely bogus, as it compares the GDP (value added) of countries with the revenue (i.e. not just value added) of corporations. It's one of the biggest blunders in economic literature, but the anti-globalist movement has evangelised it. You can find a more realistic comparison of countries and corporations here.

I find the Sugar interface a bit clumsy, but what exactly does that have to do with "open-source" (god forbid anyone use the term "free software")?

These sound like bullshit excuses for pushing M$ crapware and throwing proprietary plugins on the OLPC. Is Gnash really not sufficient? Is Flash that important for the target users, many of whom will only connect to a local mesh network? Or did the focus of the OLPC shift to U.S. consumers when I wasn't looking?

Since when is the international community afraid of FOSS? The reality seems quite the opposite (and that resource is a bit dated, I know FOSS adoption has gone up since).

I'm Spanish! I wins! I wins!!

How much CO2 is human activity producing?

Google makes possible some rough estimates:

• Annual global coal production: 50,000 million metric tonnes (World Coal Institute)
• Global oil production: 85 million bbl/day, converts to the equivalent of 128 million metric tonnes of coal per year (as reported here and in other stories, with conversion from bbl/day to tonnage/yr here)
• Annual global natural gas production: 2,500,000 million cubic meters, converts to the equivalent of 2 million tonnes of coal per year (UNCTAD estimate of 2000, with conversion factors from above)
• Total annual release of fossil fuels into the global environment: 50,130 million tonnes
• Percentage of carbon in coal (by weight): 90% for anthracite, which is what these numbers are based upon (Encarta)
• Percentage of carbon in CO2 (by weight): 27%
• Annual introduction of CO2 into the biosphere from fossil fuels: 167,100 million metric tonnes
• Estimate of atmospheric CO2: 2,870,000 million metric tonnes (CDIAC)
• This suggests that the use of fossil fuels would have increased atmospheric CO2 by 5% in the last year, disregarding all other factors
• Measurements at Mauna Loa suggest that there is a net increase in atmospheric CO2 of about 1% per year (NOAA Global Monitoring Division).

Evidently something is buffering the increase in atmospheric CO2. While this has been beneficial in the sense that it has limited the impact of burning fossil fuels, it is also very worrisome since homeostatic mechanisms like this one tend to failover very rapidly into alternative stable patterns when the buffering capacity is exceeded. There is no way to determine how close we are to a tipping point. And there is no way to predict the nature of the new stable pattern. For instance, there are mechanisms that could kick in to significantly increase the Earth's albedo and toss us into an ice age, despite the increased greenhouse effect.

This is reintroduction of carbon into the biosphere that had been sequestered away for a hundred million years or more. The last time there was this much carbon in the biosphere was before the age of dinosaurs. It is possible that the last time there was this much carbon in the biosphere was before there was enough free oxygen for chordates.

This $542 estimate is based on the estimated price of internet access of $56 for 20 hours. Which, in turn, is based on the following report http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/iteipc20065_en.pdf (table 7) This table is highly suspect. For one, it quotes $23.51 as an "average price" of 20 hours of internet access per month in "high income" countries like United States and such. Come on! Even in 2003, there were plenty of internet providers in United States that would sell you unlimited dial-up internet for less than 20 dollars; add 5 dollars for a telephone line with unlimited local phone calls. In Moscow (Russia), 25 dollars will buy you unlimited internet access for a month with a 320 kbps bandwidth.

1. All outgoing FDI from the US goes to developing countries
   
2. No other country in the world has FDI in developing countries
   
3. All FDI from developing countries goes to countries other than the US
   
4. or, I'm totaly mis-interpreting the figures.
   

"In 2003, French companies received over seven billion US dollars more foreign investment than USA companies. In the past few years, Airbus have overtaken Boeing in sales and shipments. If France isn't innovating, how come people are investing in French companies more than in USA companies?"

Not according to U.N. Figures
http://www.unctad.org/sections/dite_dir/docs/wir05 _fs_fr_en.pdf
http://www.unctad.org/sections/dite_dir/docs/wir05 _fs_us_en.pdf

It is true that FDI in the U.S. dropped pretty dramatically during 2000-2003, and I think that tracks pretty closely with the drop in currency value of the dollar against the euro. Similarly, you can see that FDI tanked in 2004 for france, as the price of the dollar started rising again.

"The French are not afraid to use nuclear power, making them the most energy independent Western nation. France pollutes less than the USA, CO2 in particular. As far as energy goes, they are beating the USA."

I can't argue with that, it's a shame that such a clean method of power generation goes unused because of political pressure from the left in the U.S.

"Reporters Without Borders ranked France as 30th in the world when it comes to freedom of the press. The USA languishes down at 44th. So much for freedom of speech."

Can't really argue that either. Reporters without borders is free to use whatever arbitrary criteria they choose to determine this.

"France has a 99% literacy rate. The USA has a 97% literacy rate. So much for education."

Again, according to the U.N.

http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/pdf/HDR05_ HDI.pdf

This is seems to be untrue.

"Yes, I know you didn't state that you are from the USA, but experience tells me only one country produces idiots like you in mass quantities. The rest have idiots too, but there's less of them, and they say where they are from."

Anonymous Coward? Heh.

"In 2003, French companies received over seven billion US dollars more foreign investment than USA companies. In the past few years, Airbus have overtaken Boeing in sales and shipments. If France isn't innovating, how come people are investing in French companies more than in USA companies?"

Not according to U.N. Figures
http://www.unctad.org/sections/dite_dir/docs/wir05 _fs_fr_en.pdf
http://www.unctad.org/sections/dite_dir/docs/wir05 _fs_us_en.pdf

It is true that FDI in the U.S. dropped pretty dramatically during 2000-2003, and I think that tracks pretty closely with the drop in currency value of the dollar against the euro. Similarly, you can see that FDI tanked in 2004 for france, as the price of the dollar started rising again.

"The French are not afraid to use nuclear power, making them the most energy independent Western nation. France pollutes less than the USA, CO2 in particular. As far as energy goes, they are beating the USA."

I can't argue with that, it's a shame that such a clean method of power generation goes unused because of political pressure from the left in the U.S.

"Reporters Without Borders ranked France as 30th in the world when it comes to freedom of the press. The USA languishes down at 44th. So much for freedom of speech."

Can't really argue that either. Reporters without borders is free to use whatever arbitrary criteria they choose to determine this.

"France has a 99% literacy rate. The USA has a 97% literacy rate. So much for education."

Again, according to the U.N.

http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/pdf/HDR05_ HDI.pdf

This is seems to be untrue.

"Yes, I know you didn't state that you are from the USA, but experience tells me only one country produces idiots like you in mass quantities. The rest have idiots too, but there's less of them, and they say where they are from."

Anonymous Coward? Heh.

Mark Maybury, MITRE (Chair), maybury@mitre.org

Karen Sparck Jones, University of Cambridge, sparckjones@cl.cam.ac.uk

Ellen Voorhees, NIST, ellen.voorhees@nist.gov

Sanda Harabagiu, University of Texas at Austin, sanda@cs.utexas.edu

Liz Liddy, University of Syracuse, liddy@syr.edu

John Prange, ARDA, jprange@nsa.gov

ARDA workshops. And for your non Americans, if you think it's limited to us... Have I got news for you! They'll be snooping around the mountains when you come... They'll be snooping around the mountains... they'll be snooping around the mountains...

Iraq still doesn't qualify. See www.unctad.org for example.

If this stands, Microsoft has successfully become the deciding party in all major corporate mergers and aquisitions

Well, the large corporations have more money than most of the world's countries put together so let's all hand over our power to them yipee!