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Bar Coding The World Away
778790 writes "The Bar Code, long used for inventory classification and sometimes feared as a tool of social engineering, has been regulated in the name of globalization, and the globe has defeated the United States. Bar Codes in America will now have more digits, to match the global bar code standard: the European Article Numbering Code."
...to include the "evil bit"?
This would last forever and be able to migrate through other technologies, such as RFID.
Now I have to go update the tattoo on the back of my neck...
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
And next: the metric system. Eat this, oversea refugees... ;-)
Where are the government adoptions of RFID tags? Is it still a privatized concept?
-Kenners EE,CE,JP&RPI.EDU
12-digit bar codes aren't quite going to be retired, but US and Canadian retailers will be expected to be able to tolerate 13-digit codes as of January 2005. This sounds a lot like the Y2K situation... anybody whose database and/or software assumed it was a 12-digit field is now going to have to account for an extra digit and that's going to mean patches and code rewrites all around.
It's good news for the geeks... more work for us to do.
Is this an April fool dupe or something? ;-)
--
This sig is inoffensive.
My question is how long will it take to get all the barcodes reassigned, and all the barcode hardware changed. I seem to recall that a large portion of US barcode readers are hardcoded to 12 digits. How much will this new bit of regulation cost?
Let's make a difference
All we need now is get the US using the same phone system as everyone else and we'll be home and dry....
Phil
Just in time for the US to go to RFID, and drom bar codes all together.
Where law ends, tyranny begins -- William Pitt
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/12/business/12barco de.html?ex=1247371200&en=5150688e8ea6f850&ei=5090& partner=rssuserland
paul reinheimer
I for one welcome our new euro-barcode overlords
I for one welcome the New World Order and our European Article Numbering Code Overlords.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
What happens with all the old hardware/software that currently exists? How long until people will need to migrate to the new system, and will such things as rfid support the number system?
TruePunk | Games
Does that mean that all the CueCats at the bottom of my desk drawer are now obsolete?
In June of 1974, the first U.P.C. scanner was installed at a Marsh's supermarket in Troy, Ohio. The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's Gum.
Speak truth to power.
...that my groceries won't check out properly, for, like, a week, while the software is upgraded to accomodate the new barcodes?
Informatus Technologicus
Also on our radar screens should be the fact that the US PSTN numbering scheme keeps getting more lines and is coming closer to the point that the (xxx)-yyy-zzzz numbering format is about to hit the wall. The rule that declared the center digit of an area code had to be 0 or 1 fell years ago. If an extra digit ever gets added anywhere, a lot of PBX systems are going to not like the new numbers.
IPv4 is also in trouble in this area, and IPv6 is waiting in the wings to take over. However, NAT seems to be good enough in stretching out single IP addresses to multiple computers so I don't know if we'll ever be forced to convert over.
The US codes have 12 digits; the EU codes, to account for 12 countries and about 25% greater population, have 13. Now the unified system has 13, with 225% the population, globalism, and 30 years of using up codes. Seems like barcode system upgrades are a perpetual growth industry.
--
make install -not war
I heard next on the list of things to convert to was metric??
Next up, metres and kilogrammes (you can spell them American if you really want).
It makes no sense. Why the hell would you want to move everyone onto the same UPC code standard? Ok, fine, you can standardise devices, big freggin deal. Barcode reading software is minimal, as are the readers. Sure, it may also make it easier to streamline shipping; the boxes could arrive at the store pre-upc'd and numbered and ready to go: TP get's it's own bar-code addressing space, whuptiedoo.
Then again, certain ISO standards....*shutter*.
For the tin foil madhatters out there, the standard doesn't provide enough addressing space to address dittly squat. I suppose getting everyone on the same standard is a step in that direction, since the next step could be setting up bar-codes that do have unique addresses (people'll be reading codes off in base-64) for later, but still.
Anyway, this may work in our favor; if the codes are standardised and it looks like there's country codes on them, one can memorise the codes you can tell which products are most likely baught from 3rd world countries via slave labor, and which are local. You can tell when they bring in the big crate of oranges from the big upc sticker weither or not they're from mexico and sprayed with DDT or not.
MMMMMMmmmm...I'v stayed up too late. I need to get some popcorn and coffie, get wired, and do some studying.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
The cited link in fact has little (if anything) to do with barcodes. It is about face recognition systems.
Fixed Link
Linkify, man!
Other inevitable and overdue US switchovers:
1. GSM mobile phones.
2. Metric. (*)
3. Standard international dialing. (00 + country)
And one I won't be holding my breath for:
4. A universal healthcare system.
(*) Laugh all you like, global corporations are gonna use metric for everything, not stupid US-only units. Eventually this will trickle down to everyday life. It may take decades, but...
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
IO Interactive and Eidos have announced to issue an extra patch for all the Hitman series, updating your kick-ass mean mofo playercharacter, with these new barcodes.
Does this mean I won't be able to play with my cat anymore?
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
Peace
Of course, there will be anal probing.
Will I have to track down the "orginal RFID tag" then?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
... with a friend of mine, and all of the regular members had a barcode that was scanned for attendance. This really creeped me out, but the sevice (i guess it was more "sunday school") was nice, and I didn't have to get a code, since I was visiting. Does anyone know if this is common practice?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
BTW who assigns barcode numbers and do they reap huge financial rewards from performing such a task?
Peace
1) I'd rather not standardize *now* on GSM that its basically EOL. 10 years ago it made sense. Now? We'd be locked into an obsolete system.
2) We're already metric, except in our signs. All our cars are metric, all our consumer goods. It happened quietly.
3) Our phone system works fine, thanks for asking.
4) The US has healthcare for everybody who is not a bum. I refuse to wait in line behind some homeless guy for coverage. I refuse to wait an extra few weeks to see a specialist. My personal healthcare is *better* than yours in every measurable way. You'll excuse me if I want to keep it that way.
So, have a nice day!
I predict that telephone NUMBERS will become a "scarce commodity" and phone companies will charge significantly less for a 1,000 lines with only a few numbers than the same 1,000 lines each with its own number. Businesses, seeking to save money, will stop buying large blocks of numbers for their PBXs.
In the future, if you want to call an employee, you'll have to do it through a switchboard:
"If you know your party's 5-digit extention, enter it now, or enter 1 for the company directory or 0 for an operator"
On a large scope, this could free up quite a few numbers.
Hmm, isn't that how it used to work in the old days? Back to the future....
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
...is a European standard any more "global" than a U.S. standard? I thought Europeans had gotten rid of all that colonial baggage?
In any case, why should anyone, anywhere, have an obligation to pay any attention to the directives of an organization comprised of members for whom they could not vote?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
WTF church is this, was it some crazy LDS thing?
my company just fineshed upgrading our software to handel the longer digit barcodes.. we also handle 2d barcodes.. the new 2d barcodes can tell you all sorts of info on the product your purchasing.. also on the back of licenses(new york for one) have a 2d barcode on back that tell all sorts of information about you..
GSM - European standard for mobile phones adopted everywhere in the world except South Korea, a bit of Japan and the US.
DVB - The international standard for digital TV encoding, adopted everywhere... yup you guessed it.
EAN - Standard built with size in mind... right again.
International Court of Justice - agreed way of trying cross border disputes and crimes against humanity... right again.
Geneva Convention - International standard for the treatment of prisoners... except for Donald "Rum as Hell".
Non proliferation treaty for biological and chemical weapons... how the hell isn't that a good idea.
What the hell is wrong with the US ? On the flip side when the US (e.g. IEEE) comes up with a standard everyone around the world adopts it very quickly... because STANDARDS MAKE SENSE. Whether these are in the field of economics (WTO... love those Vietnamese shrimp), science (love those crazy inches), politics, war or just plain old retailing.
I'm betting on a -1 Flamebait, but there is a serious issue here when you try and do cross-border trade and cross-border technology. The US make the French look like the co-operative bunny brigade when it comes to standardisation.
Give it up. Its not funny anymore
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Well, I would rather suspect that, at least for some time in the future, we'll continue to have bar codes on the package as well as RFID. And if they get rid of bar codes completely, there are still other options -- for instance, some stores already hand out "rebate reciepts."
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
But for some reason it's fine for other countries to simultaneously complain about US cultural imperialism and mandate the US submit to the other country's own boring lifeless units.
I say US is still one. But Japan and Taiwan is catching up, while China is doing an all out spring (but not too kind on their environment...) India... don't know that country well enough to make an assessment.
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
We all know that "global" means "European"; I'm fine with that. And the "international community" means the EU. No problem. Now that Europeans have repented of their colonialist/paternalis past, they're once again qualified to decide what's best for the rest of the world.
What's difficult is keeping track of which "international" things are evil and which are good.
"Multinational" is bad, right? Because it's got something to do with corporations, which are bad. Unless they're European. A "multinational" corporation is an American corporation which operates in more than one country, and it's bad, even if it practices "internationalization", in spite of the fact that "internationalization" is good (right?). But what about "multinational ism "? Is that one good or bad? I can't tell.
International standards are good, of course, provided that they're European, because then they're "multilateral" (which is good, I think, because "multilateral" means "involving any set of one or more nations which includes France"). If standards are not European, they're "unilateral", which is bad. "Unilateral" means "not including France" (or else "not excluding the US"), and it's very, very bad.
"Globalism" is good, because it includes France. "Globalization" is bad because, even though it includes France (except for Jose Bove), it doesn't exclude the US. "Globalism" is good because it excludes the US by definition: Anything which includes US is no longer "global". Instead, it's "hegemonic", which is very, very bad.
Did I miss any?
I've never yet met anybody who'll admit to posting on Slashdot. So who are all these people?!
...I have to update my tattoo?
As usual, we either invented it or it was first implemented/widespread here. So of course, how foolish and obstinate we were not to flock to a Euro standard the moment it appears ...
You're kind of behind the times. US measurements standardized on metric in 1959. The inch was changed to be exactly 2.54 cm.
Perhaps you are referring to using a base-10 measuring system. Let me know when you get your computer converted to decimal so it can be "metric".
I found the following but I suspect that you mileage may vary as there were several versions of the cat with slightly different firmware. Also there are length limits on some of the non fixed length code schemes. Also, whoever complied this table says that ISBN numbers are read but EAN-13 are not which seems odd since I was lead to believe that a ISBN number was a EAN-13 number with 978 as the country(bookland).
:a ved 2 of 5
:
A CueCat device is able to read the following barcodes
UPC-E
UPC-A
UPC-A, add 2
EAN-8
ISBN
ISBN, add 5
CODE128
CODE128-B
CODE128-C
CODE39
Interle
ITF-6
A CueCat device cannot read barcodes of the following types
- EAN-13, EAN-13, add 2 and EAN-13, add 5 : the CueCat mistakes them
respectively for UPC-A, UPC-A, add 2 and UPC-A, add 5 barcodes, and returns
the majority of the barcode value, apart the first digit and the check digit.
- EAN-128
- Extended CODE39
- CODE93
- 2 of 5
- MSI (Modified Plessey Code)
- PostNet
- RM4SCC
- 4-State
- SISAC
Apparently this is referring to retail barcodes. Barcodes are used in many other applications and there are many different kinds of barcodes.
It is likely the library industry will continue using Codabar which has a limited number of characters.
I'm working on implementing barcodes for City College of San Francisco, the primary impetus for that coming from the college library. So CCSF students will have a Codabar bar code.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Still both are beat by good old analog AMPS. Had better coverage that I have now, with as good or better quality. No data though. (at least, not easily)
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
And I found another listing that says the cat CAN read EAN-13
I don't appreciate the United State conforming to put the mark of the beast on everything. Heathens! I guess they want us all to get sent straight to hell. I'll be living in my bomb shelter until God tells me its okay to come back out again.
ISBNs are also changing from 10 to 13 digits. In this case, it's easy: a new 3-digit prefix, and a new checksum, and you're done.
Why have a fixed length? (a) it's easier to read if you know where the end is, and (b) limited space on merchandise. Sure, books, tapes and CD's have reasonable quantities of space on them, but health and beauty items, spice bottles, etc. etc. get pretty small.
Let's keep packaging to a minimum, and please not blame it on the barcode.
Design for Use, not Construction!
Metric is actively discouraged by the government. It's done under the guise of promoting it, and it's quite subtle.
For example, there'a sign on I-87 in NY which reads:
Montreal 300 miles (482.8 km)
There is no sign 50 miles later that says:
Montreal 400 km (248.5 miles)
so, you see, Imperial is easy, Metric is hard.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Wait until they barcode money so they can track whom spends what bill where. Each bill currently has a non-machine readable serial number, but add a barcode at the ATM and at the bank and they'll be set.
The question is would that info be of any use.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Is this good news because the United States lost (and we're all supposed to hate the United States)? Or is it bad news because it aids globalization (which is -- um -- bad for some reason)?
Do I have to boycott barcoded products?
Would it help if I said he was French?
You only use 2% of your DNA
But 640k should be enough for everyone!
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
1. adopt a "longer than the USA uses" global barcode standard
2. ???
3. profit!
- Disclaimer: Information in this post deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
The metric system is inferior to scaled Planck units. If we are going to take the time, effort, and money to change from feet/pounds/gallons/whatever, we should at least pick the best system to use.
I found it interesting that the patent was issued in 1952, but the meeting to determine whether to go ahead with the technology in retailing wasn't until 1970. In other words, they waited until the patent expired, coincidence?
But on a serious note, why not just go back to Latin? It's served as a universal language before (well, as close to it as you get with language), it can do it again, with a little help. It's also studied a bit more than Elvish is in academic situations.
Now excuse me, I'm off to adoration, followed by a Tridentine mass. Tantum ergo sacramentum / Veneremur cernui / Et antiquem documentum / Novo cedat ritui...
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Groceries in my experience are incredibly cheap. Even cigarettes are cheaper than almost anywhere in the US save Virigina which has virtually no tobacco tax. You can get a huge 1000 count bottle of tylenol with codeine for $10 (canadian)
then of course there are the prostitutes which will set you back a mere $150 an hour for a beautiful 19 year old french girl.
Frankly, I go to Montreal all the time to get all sorts of stuff cheap. I go to fine restaurants every night, stay in the best hotels, drink all day every day, get two prostitutes a night, load up my car with fine clothing, and then fill her up with liquor and cigarettes at the duty free shop.
Hell, apartments are so cheap in Montreal I almost want to get one permanently to keep as a second weekend retreat.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
and there is winning, the world won on metrics as well, but the US is still using the old way. A standard only works if people follow it otherwise it is just a useless rfc :(
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I thought RFID tags were going to make bar codes obsolete.
I hear the auto-workers union is very reception is that uneducated drivel.
I don't want to be a grammer nazi, but anyone poking fun at uneducated drivel should do it in an educated manner.
Dude, what about my Cue Cat? How's it going to be any better than the 20 year old IBM scanners that are so common? IBM and others might have a service to upgrade their machines but could easily abuse the situation. If there's a Microsoft system out there, the answer is going to be "buy another system" like any other piece of the upgrade train.
I expect that custom software owners will be in much better shape. It's not as good as free software, but people who are in touch with the software's writer will get fixes quickly and at reasonable cost.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Printing a bar code costs like a thousandth of cent while RFID is about $0.50 a tag. They should drop to a nickel in mass production.
AAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRGGHHHHH
You have used a redundant apostrophe, excise it.
* This post was brought to you by a concerned fellow citizen *
The serial number on US paper currency is in a standard, clear font in a standard position. This should make it very easy for modern OCR to read these numbers with very few errors. It would probably even be easier than a barcode, because the serial number is probably clearer and more distinct than a barcode would be after it's been in various pockets/cash registers/washing machines/etc.
This also applies to many other paper currencies. Offhand, I'm looking at some euro and Australian dollar notes on my desk and while the serial number is in a different place between the currencies, it is in a distinct font and appears to be in a somewhat standard location.
I don't think it would be difficult to read those electronically either, you'd just have to have a way to identify the currency type and denomination to make sure you look in the right place for the number.
come across and join the other 20,000 bikers - you too can try to kill yourself on the circuit on Mad Sunday (Sunday between practice week and race week when the circuit is made one way, (there are no speed limits (yet) on the mountain section), the locals, including me stay well away or get off Island - I think this year 4 visitor bikers were killed including one in a head on collision with an ambulance standing down from a race, another in a head on collision with other bikers.
I'm shocked no one has posted a link to the article that doesn't require registration.
o de.html?ex=1090296000&en=0ba01a954e952cf8&ei=5006& partner=ALTAVISTA1
;-)
Here it is: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/12/business/12barc
Now give me Karma!
I don't believe that nearly every single major accident you have ever had has been due to mechanical failure. I also race competively in the SCCA for Autocross, ProRally (my true passion in life), and GT in the future. Although I do not compete in Motocross or MotoGP, I have friends who have raced motorcycles for years and none of them have ever said that any accidents they had were due purely to mechanical failure. 99.99% of the time they just say they fucked up.
Warning - apostrophe overload. Metres and kilos are the units you're looking for.
How about that: Use the european code and just call it "freedom code". Great, eh?
I smell a rat.
Welcome our new EU overlords!
Screw the EU, we're going 14 digit!
Ouch!
Then there is the 50 Hz VS the correct 60 Hz electrical system (correct because of timing with a second and the human brain)
Well, 50Hz gives us a 25fps television system in PAL against your 30fps NTSC. Which means we can have a one-to-one frame correspondence to 24fps movies, avoiding all that 3:2 pulldown stuff while also allowing a higher resolution (albeit at the cost of running films 4% faster).
Ever since I found /. I thought I found a thinking comunity, one evidently not persuaded by the wind. This to me is so not about the technical dificulties at all! Im reading right now 1984 by Gorge Orwell...(i know..), I know this is a bit off and a quater troll but the whole burocratic system will lead to abysmal social changes. Social security is damm scary and bar coding is just like the icon of this whole new democratic tendency im predicting. Tell me wrong but numbering people just makes the hairs in my skin tingle. Good luck deciding on how to make car ids last(slashdot a week ago?) and people get numbered easier! /end rant.
Parent post deserves an Allusion to excellent but underknown video game +5.
A shame that someone is going to go burn their points on some hacked SovietRussia/???-Profit/overlord joke. Damn you, Slashdot. Damn you!!
--LordPixie
ASCII, domain name system, bar codes, paper formats...
As usual US invents something and ignores the rest of the world.
You say drives back with U.S. Beer?
No-one in their right freaking mind is going to prefer American beer over Canadian!
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
why? (unless the merchant simultaneously scans your National ID Card)
Euro notes have a barcode. Hold them up against light, it's a water mark. Additionally the serial numbers are printed in OCR-B font.
Converting national GDPs into dollars at market exchange rates is misleading. Prices tend to be lower in poor economies, a dollar of spending in China is worth around 4 times as much as a dollar in America. A better method is to use purchasing-power parities (PPP), which take account of price differences.
On PPP figures, China has accounted for almost one-third of global GDP growth and America only 13%. This is why commodity prices (esp. oil) are surging, even though rich world growth has been relatively subdued since 2000. [source: The Economist]
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
that the American Flag barcode in the New York Times article is of a 12 oz jar of Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter?
If you don't have a CueCat hooked up, you can google the barcode and it provides you a link to the UPC Database. Never mind the practical implications of googling a barcode for a product you have right in front of you...
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
You are saying that China has grown relatively faster than America.
If the reverse were the case, it would be amazing because America is far more rich than China.
So, yes, china is improving faster. That's because they are poorer, and have more to improve.
Don't get me wrong. Chinese growth because of its embrace of free markets is amazing, but GDP is a good measure of the value of good and services produced in an economy, even for poorer foreign countries.
Also, the US is largely responsible for China's growth in that we are the primary source of their business.
So Chinese growth is great, but without business growth (powered by the US), and the greater manufacturing demands that come with this, China wouldn't grow. Also, China has problems, like corruption, poor banking decisions, and neglected rural areas.
Either way, I asked the question not to bash China. I think China and India are the future, if the the former reforms their system towards greater freedom.
Rather, I meant to comment on European technocrats who take great pains to plan an ideal future for Europe. They claim that Europe can surpass the US in a decade. This simply won't happen because control from a central source takes away exactly that which is good from a free market: distributed trial & error.
So go ahead an chalk one up for bar-code standards and the EU. I just wish they would de-regulate large swaths of their industries, give up the ideal of a welfare state, and embrace a free market.
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
Do you even know what the difference between UPC and EAN is?
For most reputable readers, this will not be an issue at all, since the readers' designers would prefer to be able to sell their products overseas.
In fact, this saves money and works better.
Care to know less?
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
You're so funny, I can barely laugh.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
There was some gravel in turn three.
Learn to love Alaska
Well, belive it, all the times I screwed up I walked away without a scratch, once wass funny, I flipped through the air some 3 times and landed FLAT on my back , I didnt move a bit, then I started laughing realizing I wasnt even sore, the corner man thought from a distance I was convulsing so did the spectators, I was on my back laughing when they got to me.
All of those injuries are from 3 accident, the first , the jaw, a concussion, the elbow and 3 ribs was a chain splitting and getting locked in the rear wheel , the bike wet only went some 170 lbs, it flipped me over the bars then flipped on top of me, I was fine until the bike smashed down on top of me.
The other 2 came froma front brake binding and coming around a turn into crap that was on the track and loose (they were test and tune sessions and the track was far from clean) the bike shot out from under me and I went flying, one was due to a set of pads being set up wrong (actually they were set up right but for the WRONG kind of pads) on a vintage fixed caliper , A Grimeca if I remeber correctly) the other was a result of losing a small piece of plating on the caliper piston itself and it got stuck in the returen oriface for the brakes, BOTH times it caused the brakes to drag ever so slightly but at 80 mph it dosent take much for just a little drag to cause them to heat up , and iun turn bind more.
right... 'receptive to'... not 'reception is'
:)
how 'duh-duh' of me...
i must have been typing feeverishly to get the comment out
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
Xenophobia?
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
And guess what: It does. At least mine.
From the First General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1889 thereon, the spelling "kilogram" has been used exclusively in the English text of resolutions defining the unit of mass by the CGPM.
http://users.tpg.com.au/slark/jesus_666.jpg
Why is this framed as a US vs the World issue? Who gives a fuck...honestly...your insecurity and anti-US hatemongering is getting annoying.
"just wait until this is tatooed on your wrist" -jello biafra, i blow minds for a living
Recently I've starting writing on things like consumer auto ID, bar codes & privacy, and other tangetal topics. With more to come.
Evil digits? Mark of the beast? Book of Revelation? Read this. Don't get me started.
All said and done, I've been in the field for 15 years and I still love those funny glyphs. They are absolutely everywhere and most people never see them.
For a large and growing church (5k+ members or weekly attenders)
The link given seems to go to some sort of login page, rather than a story. Ive tried reloading it several times.
Perhaps the editors should check to make sure the URL's in posted stories actually work before they post them.
don't want to be a grammer nazi,
Its grammAr you fuckwit...what do they teach you stupid americans in school...godamn...
I don't intend to excuse legitimate abuses, but let's be honest about just how "fair" the ICC would be. A trial involving the US on the ICC would be about as objective as a all white jury in the south during the jim-crow era trying a black defendant accused of, say, rape. Who makes the international law anyways?? The ICC is legislature, judge and jury. Why anyone would want to be under the jurisdiction of a kangaroo court like the ICC is beyond me.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
The legal system is publicly run for a specific economic and political reason. You can't, by definition, have "private" law enforcement since law is a PUBLIC function, it is in fact THE, function of government. Everything a government does is second to the law, the source of authority if you will. (You might have private mediation, but this is a subset or and enforced by the public legal system.) A government, by definition, is the supreme law of a land, thus it must be the ultimate legal authority.
I'm curious how you decide what is a "right" and what is meerly a priviledge.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Something I posted earlier that applies to the idea of "entitlements" in general, or "rights" as it is now fashionable to call them. linky
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
This would also minimize the much of the overhead present in the current billing system, or the taxation overhead and bureaucracy of a government run system.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Chinese growth because of its embrace of free markets is amazing
... They claim that Europe can surpass the US in a decade. This simply won't happen because control from a central source takes away exactly that which is good from a free market: distributed trial & error.
An EU report issued on June 29th concluded that China has yet to qualify as a market economy. The Chinese government is a dictatorial micromanager, loves protectism, and cedes control only slowly. Compare and contrast with countries that have genuinely tried to embrace free markets, like Russia. It adopted a far more radical free market than is seen even in the US, it wasn't adequately protected, and the economy imploded as it was asset-stripped.
Also, the US is largely responsible for China's growth in that we are the primary source of their business.
The US accounts for just 21.5% of China's export market. That's the number 1 slot, but don't go patting yourself on the back too hard, even little Hong Kong manages 18%
European technocrats
You are quite right that this is unlikely to happen, but for different reasons than you suggest. It is true that the US has grown faster than the EU since 1990. However, GDP per hour worked has grown faster in Europe, and is now higher in France and Germany than the US. The reason Americans are richer is not because they are more in tune with the Free Market (tm), but simply because they prefer to work longer hours. Europeans would rather take the leisure time. Perhaps this because Europeans pay more tax? Apparently not. Ireland has lower tax rates than the US, but Irish workers, too, would rather put in less hours than take home more money.
America's superior economic performance over the past decade is much exaggerated. Productivity has grown just as fast in the euro area; GDP per person has grown a bit slower, but mainly because Europeans have chosen to take more leisure rather than more income; European employment in recent years has grown even faster than in America; and America has created some serious imbalances which could yet trip the economy up badly. From a position of surplus before 2000, the structural budget deficit is three times as big as that in the euro area. America has a big current-account deficit, compared to the Europeans small surplus; Americans save less than 2% of their disposable income, it's 12% in Europe. Total household debt in America amounts to 84% of GDP, compared with only 50% in the euro zone. So don't get complacent.
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
First, right to health care is hardcoded in many legal systems; I'll give you the example of the Italian constitution, article 32:
(As a compensation for this, there is no amendment protecting the "right" to carry guns)So health is not meerly a priviledge, but a right, as proper education in spelling should.
How do I decide what is a right and what a privilege? Well, in this case, you probably think that health is a privilege because you never had any serious problems, nor did anyone close to you. Or if you did, you were insanely rich anyway. In both cases, good for you, and I hope you will eventually understand the point in a different way than the hard one.
Last, you might read article 25 of this document.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
hexadecimal!
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.