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I m a french guy living in The Netherlands for a few years now. This is probably not so representative, but The Netherlands are very American following types, and here s what I noticed about consumer unions:
- According to dutch standards, defending consumers means testing 10 top selling DVD readers and conclude which has the best feature/price ratio
- According to french standards, defending consumersright is spot a privacy or security offending DVD maker and kill it with bad publicity.

That is of course a caricature, but it boils down to this.

Are there any american websites with consumer union info I can check ?

If joining the elite means adopting the language and attitude of a Dilbert caricature, I'll pass, thank you.

Bumblebee Man isn't Brazilian, though I guess the equivalent of him would be Chaves. I don't know if they would recognize it as a caricature of US views of Mexican children's programming or not.

It's not an imagined caricature; actually it's a parody of a real mexican show.

From http://www.newspringfield.com/info/trivia/
"The Bumble Bee character was inspired by the Mexican comedy series Chesperito. That show had a man dressed in a bee outfit talking in comical Spanish phrases"

The Real Chespirito

Bumblebee Man isn't Brazilian, though I guess the equivalent of him would be Chaves. I don't know if they would recognize it as a caricature of US views of Mexican children's programming or not.

I love how the caricature of the worm in that graphic is smiling and bug-eyed. Reminds me a bit of Clippy...

>And why do so many British English speakers smuggly act like
>their spelling or phrasing is clearly more intelligent

Probably because the caricature of Americans the world over is as uncultured, brash, boorish people.

And the British are still wondering why part of their empire is refusing to obey orders on spelling ;-)

(The preceding statements are intended purely as humour and are in no way intended to malign or cause offence to the people of the USA)

A masterful troll. But a troll nonetheless. As ingenious as you may think it is to take the side of your opponent and hyperbole it out of the park, there are some who will see it for what it is. BTW- I grew up with a Christian Conservative family and I know how they think and this just ain't it- it's more like a silly caricature of all the wacky beliefs usually found buried beneath the surface all rolled into one guy. That almost never happens. When it does, people die. Usually so does the wacko.
But, again, masterful troll. fucker.

Unfortunately you're going to get reamed over this, but you're right. I think you're quite correct in postulating people do this to justify "getting copies of music without paying for it". (Ahem.)

I will go further and state I think it's exacerbated by (i) sheer laziness, and (ii) snobbishness. It's simply easier to download a tune rather than go to the store (mingling with those dreadful teens who like -- ugh -- Britney and N'Sync), hunt through the racks, and shell out some cash. Forget the drama if it's not in stock; you'd have to interact with a store clerk and actually wait for the item to come in.

And, let's face it, isn't it nice to feel all superior to the Britney-loving masses? We're geeks, we are experts on our computers, and we don't need to interact with the technically feeble. We have cultivated an image of being somewhat enigmatic and mysterious geeks; we want to feel superior somehow, smug in our knowledge that we can do something our managers or clients can't. Or, if you prefer, it's the ability to stick it to the man that we crave; many of us demeaned for much of our lives by the athletes or whichever social group we missed out on, we now are able to turn the tables and engage in our own little world of anarchy.

Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? An over-the-top caricature, with little basis in reality. And yet...how much of it seems borne out by the typical rantings whenever the RIAA or MPAA is the topic of debate?

....whiny pseudo-activist screeds....

With that one line you drop your pants. The complaint isn't procedural, it's political. Have the balls to be upfront with your biases.

"In QC, Anglophones are a hated minority."

This is a total overstatement. If it wasn't of the ignorance of it's author I'd accuse him of plainly lying and giving a perfect demonstration of bad faith. Do you have any idea what's hate? There are more racial and hate crimes in Toronto than in Montreal. You would know that if you would be documented at all.

Maybe you meant that french and english are not living in total harmony? Oh my. Big deal. Is that situation unique to Quebec and unique to French Canadians and English Canadians? Put your personal resentment aside for a second and admit Quebec is an incredibly peaceful place. Or maybe you don't live in Quebec at all? In that case, how the hell you know what you are talking about? A friend of a friend maybe? Me too I have a lot of these!

Anglo-Quebecers often pose as victims, but the reality is they are better treated than the French ever was in Canada.

For years french-only speaking workers were paid significantly less than english-only speaking workers for an equal education.

About 30 years ago, french people couldn't be served in french in stores, even by french speaking employees. Everything had to be done in English. Remember Eaton anybody?

These days, the federal government is offering services in french and english in Quebec but does not offer the same level of service in other provinces.

In Quebec we have english hospitals, english universities, english schools. Very recently, Ontario's government did all it could to close the only french academic hospital in Ontario. Thank god they failed, but that was at the cost of a lenghty battle.

In the 1890, the government of Manitoba stopped funding french schools. New Brunswick did the same before in 1870. For some time it's been illegal to speak french in some provinces. Of course this has been made unconstitutional, but it has been made so after the harm was done.

And the list goes on. English being victims of evil French people really is a pathetic statement.

"the Quebec Office de la Langue Francais' attempts to get people to stop using hotdog and hamburger"

This example is a complete caricature. The person writing this really has no idea what the role of this bureau is. This bureau is promoting the use of good french. It is promoting the use of french in the workplace. It is promoting the use of french in the public space.

Quebec is a French province god dammit. What's so surprising about it's people trying to keep this identity? French Canadians compare less than English Canadians to Americans but yet English Canadians persist putting barriers to Americans entering the canadian market (all tv ads on canadian tv are canadian, even for american shows). I kind of feel like English Canadians want to integrate Quebec completely to their (english speaking) universe, but they wouldn't let themselves be fully integrated in the American (cultural) universe. Either nationalism isn't acceptable for anybody, or it is acceptable for everybody. Otherwise you got a double standard.

I read once that some German papers depicted this bureau of some gestapo arresting people for speaking english. This simply is insane. Guess where this paper was taking it's information from? English press!

Either my reading comprehension of your post, or yours of mine sucks. Or perhaps you're a troll and you have me hooked ;)

You said that profits are a waste and that the $$$ should be reinvested to grow the company. For what reason the company should grow is unclear, it appears to you to be an end unto itself. I said to the contrary that profits are the entire point and that if you do choose to reinvest it would be towards then end of having even more profits to pocket.

I am convinced that some of the problems in corporate America today is confusion over this fundamental issue. The confusion is understandable because with todays tax laws profits, real tangible honest profits, are taxed twice and at a high rate both times. Capital gains on the other hand are taxed only once and that one time at a lower rate. So, investors naturally want to make their stock price go up rather than have it pay dividends. Beyond encouraging your kind of thinking the problem is that unlike dividends stock prices don't have to be grounded in any kind of objective reality. The internet bubble and Enron amply illustrated that. The whole stock price game can become a massive, complex, unstable ponzi scheme ungrounded in reality. Enron is a perfect example of the result - it was only important to grow on paper, losses were hidden and profits were manufactured and nobody was the wiser (for a while) because nobody actually wanted to get those "profits" Enron claimed to have. Everybody was happy and tax law encouraged them to "reinvest" to make the company bigger and the stock price go up. If the tax laws had been otherwise Enron would have had to be more honest, if they claimed chimerical profits investors would have wanted at least some of them to go in their pocket. Sadly, while the Bush administration made some progress they got demogogued about "cutting taxes for the rich" and didn't push this through. While it really would be a tax cut for the rich it is still the right thing to do, and with all the 401(k)'s, IRA's, mutual funds and stock investments by pension funds your average stock holder isn't exactly the top hat wearing caricature of wealth from the monopoly box.

Your caricature of the 'stupid manager' is only accurate in the case of companies that are on their way out of business. Granted there are a lot of companies on the way out of business.

But try to think past 'Dilbert' stereotypes. Any good manager is going to defer to experts under his employ.

And any company that wants to stay in business long-term fires people who take bribes.

Well you know what they say, you get the government you deserve. Sadly, I think we are getting the government the majority of us deserve (even if only a minority voted, and the minority of that voted for Bush)

The more I read the news/watch TV the more I realize that the "ordinary american" is like Bush: likes to spout jingos without thinking through all possible ramifications. What "feels good" to say must be right.we really have become true reflections of the Simpsons (which I can only assume were meant to be caricatures). (classic episode: Homer yelling "USA! USA!" in a domestic sporting event)

So what if Bush isnt an intellectual (a point no Republican disputes). Have you seen the Tonight Show and the Jaywalking segments? I alternate between LOL and shaking my head in disgust.

I am way past cynical, I am finding ways of leaving this country for safer (for people with half a brain) places. Canada looks nice, but cold! :)

Either sane copyright laws, with a socialist welfare state

Don't believe everything you hear on Faux News. Not everyone is the caricature the Right makes them to be, despite millions of dollars in media talking points.

You swine. You vulgar little maggot. Don't you know that you are pathetic? You worthless bag of filth. As we say in Texas, I'll bet you couldn't pour piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel. You are a canker. A sore that won't go away. I would rather kiss a lawyer than be seen with you.

You are a fiend and a coward, and you have bad breath. You are degenerate, noxious and depraved. I feel debased just for knowing you exist. I despise everything about you. You are a bloody nardless newbie twit protohominid chromosomally aberrant caricature of a coprophagic cloacal parasitic pond scum and I wish you would go away.

You're a putrescence mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon.

You are a bleating fool, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beasts who sired you and then killed themselves in recognition of what they had done.

I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformity. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention you smell?

If you aren't an idiot, you made a world-class effort at simulating one. Try to edit your writing of unnecessary material before attempting to impress us with your insight. The evidence that you are a nincompoop will still be available to readers, but they will be able to access it more rapidly.

You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood. May you choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of your own trite, foolish beliefs.

You are weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty and profane. You are foul and disgusting. You're a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you. Even sheep won't have sex with you. You are unreservedly pathetic, starved for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot.

And what meaning do you expect your delusionally self-important statements of unknowing, inexperienced opinion to have with us? What fantasy do you hold that you would believe that your tiny-fisted tantrums would have more weight than that of a leprous desert rat, spinning rabidly in a circle, waiting for the bite of the snake?

You are a waste of flesh. You have no rhythm. You are ridiculous and obnoxious. You are the moral equivalent of a leech. You are a living emptiness, a meaningless void. You are sour and senile. You are a disease, you puerile one-handed slack-jawed drooling meatslapper.

On a good day you're a half-wit. You remind me of drool. You are deficient in all that lends character. You have the personality of wallpaper. You are dank and filthy. You are asinine and benighted. You are the source of all unpleasantness. You spread misery and sorrow wherever you go.

I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Your writing has to be a troll. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragmen

You swine. You vulgar little maggot. Don't you know that you are pathetic? You worthless bag of filth. As we say in Texas, I'll bet you couldn't pour piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel. You are a canker. A sore that won't go away. I would rather kiss a lawyer than be seen with you.

You are a fiend and a coward, and you have bad breath. You are degenerate, noxious and depraved. I feel debased just for knowing you exist. I despise everything about you. You are a bloody nardless newbie twit protohominid chromosomally aberrant caricature of a coprophagic cloacal parasitic pond scum and I wish you would go away.

You're a putrescence mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon.

You are a bleating fool, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beasts who sired you and then killed themselves in recognition of what they had done.

I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformity. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention you smell?

If you aren't an idiot, you made a world-class effort at simulating one. Try to edit your writing of unnecessary material before attempting to impress us with your insight. The evidence that you are a nincompoop will still be available to readers, but they will be able to access it more rapidly.

You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood. May you choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of your own trite, foolish beliefs.

You are weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty and profane. You are foul and disgusting. You're a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you. Even sheep won't have sex with you. You are unreservedly pathetic, starved for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot.

And what meaning do you expect your delusionally self-important statements of unknowing, inexperienced opinion to have with us? What fantasy do you hold that you would believe that your tiny-fisted tantrums would have more weight than that of a leprous desert rat, spinning rabidly in a circle, waiting for the bite of the snake?

You are a waste of flesh. You have no rhythm. You are ridiculous and obnoxious. You are the moral equivalent of a leech. You are a living emptiness, a meaningless void. You are sour and senile. You are a disease, you puerile one-handed slack-jawed drooling meatslapper.

On a good day you're a half-wit. You remind me of drool. You are deficient in all that lends character. You have the personality of wallpaper. You are dank and filthy. You are asinine and benighted. You are the source of all unpleasantness. You spread misery and sorrow wherever you go.

I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Your writing has to be a troll. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragmen

You swine. You vulgar little maggot. Don't you know that you are pathetic? You worthless bag of filth. As we say in Texas, I'll bet you couldn't pour piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel. You are a canker. A sore that won't go away. I would rather kiss a lawyer than be seen with you.

You are a fiend and a coward, and you have bad breath. You are degenerate, noxious and depraved. I feel debased just for knowing you exist. I despise everything about you. You are a bloody nardless newbie twit protohominid chromosomally aberrant caricature of a coprophagic cloacal parasitic pond scum and I wish you would go away.

You're a putrescence mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon.

You are a bleating fool, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beasts who sired you and then killed themselves in recognition of what they had done.

I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformity. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention you smell?

If you aren't an idiot, you made a world-class effort at simulating one. Try to edit your writing of unnecessary material before attempting to impress us with your insight. The evidence that you are a nincompoop will still be available to readers, but they will be able to access it more rapidly.

You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood. May you choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of your own trite, foolish beliefs.

You are weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty and profane. You are foul and disgusting. You're a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you. Even sheep won't have sex with you. You are unreservedly pathetic, starved for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot.

And what meaning do you expect your delusionally self-important statements of unknowing, inexperienced opinion to have with us? What fantasy do you hold that you would believe that your tiny-fisted tantrums would have more weight than that of a leprous desert rat, spinning rabidly in a circle, waiting for the bite of the snake?

You are a waste of flesh. You have no rhythm. You are ridiculous and obnoxious. You are the moral equivalent of a leech. You are a living emptiness, a meaningless void. You are sour and senile. You are a disease, you puerile one-handed slack-jawed drooling meatslapper.

On a good day you're a half-wit. You remind me of drool. You are deficient in all that lends character. You have the personality of wallpaper. You are dank and filthy. You are asinine and benighted. You are the source of all unpleasantness. You spread misery and sorrow wherever you go.

I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Your writing has to be a troll. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragmen

Good ol' Bill must pronounce it Mee-crow-soft.
Not unlike most /.ers pronouncing it Mickeysoft, Microsloth, etc.
If I drew a caricature of you, would it look something like the comic book shop guy on the Simpsons?
OK, sorry, that was uncalled for, but Geezus.

Yet you still come back because, at heart, you know I'm not the caricature you paint me to be.

I keep coming back in the hopes that some of what I'm saying is sinking in or, at least, making yout think more deeply about the subjects.

And the idea that overpopulation of anything other than gay bath houses gave rise to AIDS in the US is delusion

Overpopulation is what allows diseases to mutate quickly. If you have a million infected hosts rather than ten thousand, then the disease has one hundred times the opportunity to mutate, possibly becoming more deadly and infectious. Sure, a primary means of spread was through gay bath houses, but no one in those bath houses at the time had any knowledge of AIDS. It took the scientific community years to figure out what the disease was and how it was transmitted. I'm sure that you will tell me how the Bible condemns homosexuality, but that's the same Bible that says it's okay to have and beat slaves (Leviticus 25:44-46 and Exodus 21:20-21, respectively), so I don't put much "faith" into the Bible as a moral compass.

But you ignore that the US has more trees now than when the Indians had exclusive run of the place.

This message brought to you by Weyerhaeuser... You have fallen for the logging industry propaganda where they fell an old-growth forest and then count the saplings they planted. Ever wonder why they don't give meaningful numbers like standing board-feet of trees? You're talking to the wrong guy on this one. I worked on a satellite whose purpose was to measure the vegetation canopy and foliage density and I am well aware of the distortions perpetrated by the logging industry.

But you ignore that for the first time alternative energy in the form of hydrogen is starting to be an economically practical alternative in more and more cases.

It's not becoming practical for passenger cars any time soon. To use it in gaseous form safely requires tanks that are rated to 20,000psi, about three times what a scuba tank is rated for. To use it in liquid form requires keeping it chilled to -423 degrees Fahrenheit or lower at the pump and kept that way in the vehicle. The refrigeration requires a lot of energy, and insulating the tank makes it impractically large. Even with the best insulation, as much as 4 percent of the liquid evaporates daily, creating pressure that can only be relieved by bleeding off the vapor. Because of that, a car parked for two weeks would lose half its fuel. Fuel cell technology, in which the hydrogen is absorbed into solids, has its own problems. A lot of energy is required to imbue the fuel cell with hydrogen, and, in some cases, extremely high temperatures are required to get the hydrogen back out, exacting a huge toll in efficiency. Also, filling a fuel cell takes far more time than pumping gasoline -- so much so that consumers would not consider it a viable alternative. Bush is pushing hydrogen because he knows that it won't be a viable solution any time soon and, thus, will be no threat to the oil barons that helped fund his campaign.

Your fundamental unfairness is exposed when you tout Hitler's supposed Catholicism as a black mark on religion but claim it's unfair that Stalin's atheism should be marked against that system.

That was a false accusation. I was unaware the Hitler was Catholic and never suggested that his atrocities were a reflection on Catholicism. I pointed out the similarity of his beliefs on homosexuality to your own, but, at no point did I ever claim that Catholicism had anything to do with it. I challenge you to go back through the discussion and show me where I even so much as referred to Hitler as a Catholic. Had I indicted Catholicism by way of Hitler's actions, then I wold agree that your retort regarding Stalin was justified -- but I did not and it was not. Bringing up Stalin to denigrate atheists is an old trick of the religious right, and I was not about to set you up to pull it on

Yet you still come back because, at heart, you know I'm not the caricature you paint me to be. You're stuck in your set piece battles. We're running out of old growth forests! But you ignore that the US has more trees now than when the Indians had exclusive run of the place. We're running out of oil! But you ignore that for the first time alternative energy in the form of hydrogen is starting to be an economically practical alternative in more and more cases. And the idea that overpopulation of anything other than gay bath houses gave rise to AIDS in the US is delusion (Africa's different, but that's a pathology of bad govt. not too many people).

You don't live in a dynamic world but a static world and that makes you see things both better and worse than they are.

Your fundamental unfairness is exposed when you tout Hitler's supposed Catholicism as a black mark on religion but claim it's unfair that Stalin's atheism should be marked against that system. Stalin cynically used Orthodoxy as much as Hitler cynically used Islam when he raised two muslim SS battalions.

You claim I have neither the knowledge nor the intelligence to judge you. Fine, if you want to have your little fantasies about me, be my guest but you might want to read up on comparative advantage. Feel free to be a little ashamed when you find I'm right.