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Internet was in many households long before Microsoft implemented it on the "commodized PC platform".

The numbers aren't there to support such a claim. In fact, they prove just the opposite. The US Census figures are particularly striking and persuasive.

Households With a Computer and Internet Access 1984 to 2003

Internet Adoption 1995-2011

In 1990 the Internet had existed for only 7 years; just 3 million people had access to it worldwide. 73% of these people were living in the United States, 15% were in Western Europe.

Internet Users 1990

Don't forget Japan. All of these countries achieve such low fertility rates via female education.

Anyway, that's 1.1Bn people + China's 1.3Bn. What about the other 4.6Bn?

Bangladesh, India, China, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia and to a degree Turkey and Iran are way overpopulated and (with the exception of China) keep on growing.

http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=2
http://www.indexmundi.com/map/?t=0&v=21&r=xx&l=en

Sure, you can bash NCLB implementation all you want, but if you agree that leaving no children behind is a good goal, how would you do it?

It's easy to bash the armchair 'experts' that crafted the law or the electorate that has no domain knowledge, so how to get there just "unknowable", or we just shouldn't try to do it, because it's not doable. If you have the secret, there are many people willing to listen.

Or are you arguing that public education should be doing something else and "not leaving children behind" isn't a goal of public education, and we should be spending our money instead on people that have better prospects by providing enrichment, after school programs, and advanced programs for students. It's a potentially valid argument to spend public money that way instead (not that I would advocate it), but there's only so much money to spend (and the US is spending quite a bit of it on primary education compared to the rest of the world normalized for purchasing power), and at some point, we (collectively) should make a choice compatible with our goals.

No, mon ami, it is almost all US. In fact, about 25% of world greenhouse emissions, more than any other nation, even if weighted by economic activity.

It's been a while since I've taken any math classes, so clearly I missed the memo about 25% being "almost all".

No, mon ami, it is almost all US. In fact, about 25% of world greenhouse emissions, more than any other nation, even if weighted by economic activity.

You do not even understand the statistics you're quoting. It's almost all due to the U.S. because they account for 25%.

Stop taking sociology and take some math courses.

Beware of any statistics presented in English, for the publishers have an obvious incentive to skew the output for political reasons.

As you perfectly illustrate!

Bicycle is healthy, no argument there. Meanwhile, 95% of US electric power is generated by BURNING COAL, like it is 1865. Still think your bicycle makes a difference?

And the answer is simple -- do what the French did -- go nuclear. Yes I am aware of the major fud campaign and everyone being scared of any technology they do not understand ("cyber", nuclear....); but someone needs to make a call. We CAN build safe reactors, ones that can withstand both earthquake and tsunami.

As for pointing fingers to China, that might not work for US -- a source of 25% of global greenhouse pollution.

No, mon ami, it is almost all US. In fact, about 25% of world greenhouse emissions, more than any other nation, even if weighted by economic activity.

Beware of any statistics presented in English, for the publishers have an obvious incentive to skew the output for political reasons.

A single nation, US of A releases 25% of world's greenhouse gases. "Third world" is not even in the picture here. US beats everyone even in emissions per dollar of economic activity. I don't remember the book name, but here's a world map I found: http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=299#

I believe the charts you're referring to are these ones:

Science Research

Science Growth

Assuming these are the same ones you saw yesterday, the problem I have with conclusion that the US is falling behind "hard" based on these charts is that there was still growth. But if the US is already pumping out, say, 1000 papers a year, then increasing to 1200 a year is quantitatively more than a country that published 20 papers at the first year of measurement and 40 papers at the end. But, the growth of the second country will look more impressive. Not to say the US isn't leveling off, but it's like expecting a hot new product to double its sales every quarter, it's just not possible due to eventual saturation (cue xkcd comic about extrapolation).

Also, the research chart is for publications in 2001, while the growth chart measured the change between 1990 and 2001. E.g. before the Bush II administration and the Republican war on science. Since both charts' data ends at 2001, it's clear that (at the time) the US was still way ahead of everyone else in scientific paper output.

(No, I'm not American).

I believe the charts you're referring to are these ones:

Science Research

Science Growth

Assuming these are the same ones you saw yesterday, the problem I have with conclusion that the US is falling behind "hard" based on these charts is that there was still growth. But if the US is already pumping out, say, 1000 papers a year, then increasing to 1200 a year is quantitatively more than a country that published 20 papers at the first year of measurement and 40 papers at the end. But, the growth of the second country will look more impressive. Not to say the US isn't leveling off, but it's like expecting a hot new product to double its sales every quarter, it's just not possible due to eventual saturation (cue xkcd comic about extrapolation).

Also, the research chart is for publications in 2001, while the growth chart measured the change between 1990 and 2001. E.g. before the Bush II administration and the Republican war on science. Since both charts' data ends at 2001, it's clear that (at the time) the US was still way ahead of everyone else in scientific paper output.

(No, I'm not American).

:

see http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=99

IMHO well observed:
http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=99
http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=100

And I think this statement is the begin of the canon-boat diplomacy in the Internet!

IMHO well observed:
http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=99
http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=100

And I think this statement is the begin of the canon-boat diplomacy in the Internet!

http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=99

http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=99

http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=159 http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=160

http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=159 http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=160

Let's not even start about false positives....

Actually, let's do...

What many people don't realize is that detection procedures with very impressive-sounding statistical properties generally do horribly at catching rare events.

Imagine some very impressive numbers. Suppose that this procedure has 99.999% sensitivity -- it catches nearly every wannabe terrorist who tries to board a plane intending to do harm. And suppose it also has 99.999% specificity -- out of 100,000 innocent passengers, 99,999 will be correctly identified as innocent, and only 1 will be a false alarm. Sounds good, right?

Not really. In a given year, only a very small number of passengers are wannabe terrorists -- say, 10 per year. (That's probably high.) On the other hand, there are 1.6 billion air passengers per year (that may be a low estimate, since it's a 2000 number). So if this were implemented worldwide, then in a given year, we can assume that this profiling procedure will flag 160,010 people as terrorists. Only 6 x 10^-5 of those will be actual terrorists.

Of course, those hypothetical sensitivity and specificity numbers are unrealistically, ridiculously good. With more realistic numbers, the problem gets much worse. Even if the detection procedure is very sensitive and very specific -- and I doubt that it is -- the low base-rate of terrorism means that an enormous number of people will be falsely accused of being terrorists.

This map is interesting:

http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=210

Looks like Europe is increasing it's spending on education faster than the USA is.

Here's an interesting map I saw recently with nations sized by their number of scientific publications:

http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=205

Can you spot the Middle East?

How heavy, because I'd take it.

The United States has THE highest incarceration rate (0.75%) in the world, by far. "The United States has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's incarcerated population."

There are two reasons for this: widespread and efficient policing (compared to the countries with the lowest incarceration rates, at least) and laws that promote long sentences for crimes that are usually given shorter sentences in other countries. Crime rates are about the same in most developed countries (except that the US has a much higher homicide rate -- but that only accounts for a tiny proportion of crime).

Most of those laws are due to the "war on drugs," which was ineffective and wasteful, and a mistaken study from the 1970s that suggested that treatment programs don't reduce crime (good ones do; not so good ones have no effect; strong programs -- and long sentences -- for people who are unlikely to re-offend anyway actually increase crime).

Some people are leeches, I don't disagree on that, but many, many people in prison in the US have either been in too long, which makes it harder to reintegrate into society, or should be in a medical or psychiatric setting instead. Warehousing offenders rather than getting them out and into real jobs is enormously expensive, something like $100000 a year. That's, what, five average adults' income tax? If drugs and their dealers were paying taxes instead...

The people running prisons know this, and lawmakers are realizing that they're throwing money away and are trying to turn things around. They don't talk about it much because it's political suicide to look soft on crime, but road money has to come from somewhere and raising taxes is just as unpopular.

Let's put it this way: if any change at all reduces incarceration by 1%, that would save roughly $2 billion. Reduce it enough to match even China and you're looking at $15 billion freed up. That doesn't include court costs. That would pay for a hell of a lot of rehab.