The General assembly is the whole of the world. The Security council is the permenant members and 10 drafted in that the permenant 5 approve of. And this is the one where the memebers regularly use their vetos to kill resolutions that conflict with their interests.
Which one is more likely to be representative?
But the point of my post is rather that people are always complaining about the UN when it is only as effective as its members let it be.
I belive that the French have surpassed even the US recently in terms of productivity per worker:-)
Although this was in part due to passing a law limiting workers to 37.5 hours per week. French firms didn't want to hire more people (as the law was intended to get to do), instead they invested in more machinery and automation.
Could it be that France is just opposed to policing actions (as opposed to thoughts) of any kind?
Probably not. European governments are quicker to regulate and intervene that the US. And the French in particular are very protective of their sovereignty.
The Internet is global
I agree. Which raises the question, why was this topic filed under USA?
The general assembly has no powers. The problem is with the Security council which has power but any of the five permenant members (US, UK, France, China, Russia) can veto decisions they do not like. The result is it is very hard to achieve any consensous.
Then everyone says the UN is weak/disorganised, whereas the UN is the countries that make it up. So the problem is actually with the 5 main powers and their will to act, or not act, or stall as meets their requirements
I was at a conference recently where a rep from one to the Telcos said that increasingly people are using moobile phones for all voice calls and the land line is used for Internet/data access. This is most true in younger and more tech savvy phone users.
With the growth of high speed access they expected the trend to grow even faster.
I believe the main intent behind the.eu domian is to provide a seperate identity for European companies rather than to eliminate domain squatting. Currently.com is generally reagarded as a US origin (over.US which is difficult to use). But a European company (that operates accross all of the EU) will not want to have to register seperate.fr,.de,.uk to establish their Euro identity.
The company I am working with uses the messy fix of.com for the US sites and.one.com for European sites.
The ESA has plenty of money. Take a look at their site in the science section and you will see 13 science missions in progress (including such ones as XMM Newton an x-ray telescope larger than Nasa's and Mars Express the only probe from anywhere going to Mars in the next few years) and details of 7 planned ones.
The ESA launcher family Ariane is the leading commercial launcher by far. And it didn't get developed on a shoestring budget.
The ESA is an extremly successful agency, especially considering its origins as a transnational body for a group of nations not know for their large spending on Space affairs.
I think that is a bit harsh. Getting Bush's ear is one of the tactics that is a possible winner for MS.
If the case can be held off to next year then a new President Bush who is more sympathetic to MS will clear out the DOJ and install his people who will make the case go away. Similar to what happened when Regan arrived on the scene of the IBM case in the 80s.
It is worrying as it makes you wonder is the Judiciary independant of the Government, something that is fundamental to a working Democracy.
I believe from other news sources that they lost contact with the rocket and believe it was a second stage failure. So something not directly related to the launch method.
But the failure might have been indirectly caused by the difficulties in transporting the rocket to the launch site. It is going to be at sea for days/weeks and this may cause problems with vibration and motion that a land based system would not have.
I remain skeptical concerning government involvement...even when I agree with the direction being pushed I think there are two issues here. The first is related to government involvement and here in Europe people are less worried about such things. EU governments tend to be more protective of their citizens rights.
The second thing is why this is being done. Presumably it is to ensure that all citizens, including the disadvantaged, have access to the new information streams. The service public may not be as good as a private one but it will be available to a wider section of society.
But providing internet accounts is only half the story. The other part is the cost of running such a connection which people have mentioned before and secondly there is getting access to the hardware required to get online. If you are depending on the government to provide you with Net access then you probably can't afford the cost of a PC.
Some infrastructure or support is required to aid people in this area too. In this country from time to time it is mentioned that the government should provide large tax credits to individuals who by PCs. Now that would be nice but again it may not help those on the lower rungs of society who could use the Net to help themselves.
Not that scary. Check out the article in the New Scientist on tha chance of this happening. Basically the ground will not open up and swallow you in a black hole.
With some of the strange laws passed in Europe affecting the UK recently, such as we *have* to use metric measurement instead of imperial
Not strange, it is part of breaking down trade barriers. Everyone works from a level playing field i.e. the one system of units and measures. Then you don't have extra costs in remarking your goods for one market and you can tranparently compare one (metric) product with another (imperial)
A couple of years ago I remember hearing about Swiss phone companies that were routinely logging locations of Phones. The information would have been available to the Police or whoever. Just how accurately could you locate someone using the GSM system this way. Would you only be able to say they are using this base station, or could you narrow it to within a few hundred metres?
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The Security council is the permenant members and 10 drafted in that the permenant 5 approve of. And this is the one where the memebers regularly use their vetos to kill resolutions that conflict with their interests.
Which one is more likely to be representative?
But the point of my post is rather that people are always complaining about the UN when it is only as effective as its members let it be.
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I belive that the French have surpassed even the US recently in terms of productivity per worker :-)
Although this was in part due to passing a law limiting workers to 37.5 hours per week. French firms didn't want to hire more people (as the law was intended to get to do), instead they invested in more machinery and automation.
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Probably not. European governments are quicker to regulate and intervene that the US. And the French in particular are very protective of their sovereignty.
The Internet is global
I agree. Which raises the question, why was this topic filed under USA?
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Why use the UN. Isn't there already an existing international Police force - Interpol. Could they take on the role?
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Then everyone says the UN is weak/disorganised, whereas the UN is the countries that make it up. So the problem is actually with the 5 main powers and their will to act, or not act, or stall as meets their requirements
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With the growth of high speed access they expected the trend to grow even faster.
-----------------------------
The company I am working with uses the messy fix of .com for the US sites and .one.com for European sites.
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The ESA launcher family Ariane is the leading commercial launcher by far. And it didn't get developed on a shoestring budget.
The ESA is an extremly successful agency, especially considering its origins as a transnational body for a group of nations not know for their large spending on Space affairs.
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If the case can be held off to next year then a new President Bush who is more sympathetic to MS will clear out the DOJ and install his people who will make the case go away. Similar to what happened when Regan arrived on the scene of the IBM case in the 80s.
It is worrying as it makes you wonder is the Judiciary independant of the Government, something that is fundamental to a working Democracy.
This makes it a relevant article
Other reports on ZD Net and CNet are saying that the DOJ is backing away from a breakup as a proposed solution
Kubrick had stipulated that it was not to be re-released until after his death. Check the trivia on it at IMDB
I believe from other news sources that they lost contact with the rocket and believe it was a second stage failure. So something not directly related to the launch method.
But the failure might have been indirectly caused by the difficulties in transporting the rocket to the launch site. It is going to be at sea for days/weeks and this may cause problems with vibration and motion that a land based system would not have.
The second thing is why this is being done. Presumably it is to ensure that all citizens, including the disadvantaged, have access to the new information streams. The service public may not be as good as a private one but it will be available to a wider section of society.
But providing internet accounts is only half the story. The other part is the cost of running such a connection which people have mentioned before and secondly there is getting access to the hardware required to get online. If you are depending on the government to provide you with Net access then you probably can't afford the cost of a PC.
Some infrastructure or support is required to aid people in this area too. In this country from time to time it is mentioned that the government should provide large tax credits to individuals who by PCs. Now that would be nice but again it may not help those on the lower rungs of society who could use the Net to help themselves.
Not that scary. Check out the article in the New Scientist on tha chance of this happening. Basically the ground will not open up and swallow you in a black hole.
Not strange, it is part of breaking down trade barriers. Everyone works from a level playing field i.e. the one system of units and measures. Then you don't have extra costs in remarking your goods for one market and you can tranparently compare one (metric) product with another (imperial)
A couple of years ago I remember hearing about Swiss phone companies that were routinely logging locations of Phones. The information would have been available to the Police or whoever. Just how accurately could you locate someone using the GSM system this way. Would you only be able to say they are using this base station, or could you narrow it to within a few hundred metres?