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  1. Re:And will be unavailable anyplace else.... on World's Cheapest Car Goes On Sale In India · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And hippies!! Dont forget the hippies!! Before Ford came along America was basically an Agricultural nation with most of the population living on farms. Now most of the population lives in cities and thank god for that. Rural areas are the cess pit of the human condition and the faster India can get its people into cities the better and if it takes cheap cars to do it fine (though I would prefer mass transit) At least if we get the air polluted enough the hippies will stop backpacking here to shit on our streets !

  2. MillionBilllion on World's Cheapest Car Goes On Sale In India · · Score: 1

    Count the zeroes. You said 29 billion and not 29 million. Even the entire worlds population including babies and children is still 6 billion :) Granted reading everyday about the govt doing billion dollar bailouts, trillion dollar stimuluses and million dollar bonuses people cant really be blamed for mixing up their millions with their billions.

  3. Re:And will be unavailable anyplace else.... on World's Cheapest Car Goes On Sale In India · · Score: 1

    But oh thats OK . We will keep sending the excess off to America. After all its pretty much empty (most of the land is owned by the Federal department of Interior) and smart people are needed in America all the time. So everyone benefits. India keeps its population almost constant till it reaches the level of development where people stop having a lot of kids an the population starts falling . Meanwhile America gets a lot of smart people to keep their economy running.

  4. Idiot on World's Cheapest Car Goes On Sale In India · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Who's the idiot who modded parent insightful. The inbred redneck does not even know that telling lies is not the same as being Insightful Rush Limbaugh notwithstanding. Indian pollution standards are stricter than America's and California's.They match European standards and the Nano meets the future Euro V standard which even Europe has not shifted to yet. Car insurance is compulsory and everyone has at least 3rd party insurance. Every car has to go through a pollution check after every year and cars older than 15 years are mandatorily junked. Seat belts are compulsory. Air Bags are not as most Indian traffic is inside cities and at lower speed collisions Air bags cause more injuries than they prevent. People who plan to do cross country drives buy larger more expensive cars with air bags. The so called American way of life is just 80 years old and based on cheap Texas and Alaska oil and industrial farming on empty farmland(grabbed through genocide). I dont see Americans as any superior/innovative/industrious than the Sheikhs who traded in their camels for BMWs when they found oil. The American century has been built on a resource boom. Whatever innovation has happened has been done by first generation immigrants. Now that the cheap resources are running out , the smart people will stop immigrating and the center of the world is bound to shift back to India-China which have for 99% of history been the biggest economies of the world. As for gas prices India already has high gas taxes to encourage fuel conservation. Gas costs around 5 dollar a gallon currently and people drive accordingly with no wasted trips.

  5. Re:Why stop online? on Calif. Politican Thinks Blurred Online Maps Would Deter Terrorists · · Score: 0

    Like a cave called the USA and everyone else is the other? Been there done that even won reelection for doing that- regards George

  6. Re:200 Miles of U.S. territory on How To Rack Up $28,000 In Roaming Without Leaving the US · · Score: 1

    If you like reading fine print you may also discover that EEZ and territorial waters are not the same thing. EEZ only gives you the right to economic exploitation like fishing etc but you do not have any police powers. It would be perfectly fine for a boat to anchor 12 miles from San Francisco and serve cannabis on board. Also all territorial water and EEZ limits are applicable only when there is not another country with claim to the same water. e.g. If there are two island nations 5 miles apart there territorial water would be only 2.5 miles as the line would be drawn equidistant. While this does not become a factor as often for the 12 mile limit for the 200 mile limit it is in effect pretty much of the time. Otherwise Florida would be inside the Cuban EEZ as it is definitely less than 200 miles from Cuba.

  7. Re:Still 290$? on How To Rack Up $28,000 In Roaming Without Leaving the US · · Score: 1

    All I hear is blah blah blh Blame the big corporation. Well I have news for you . The cruise company is also a big corporation and the correct people to sue in this situation. The customer should enter a joint suit with AT&T and the international service partner and sue the cruise company for triple damages for switching on an international cell tower where its not supposed to be. However it should not be too difficult to have a way of the switching on and switching off of the tower be automatic based on gps signals. Then if the tower switches on wrongly you sue the GPS provider .Oh wait GPS is provided by the US govt.
    BTW as the port of Miami is surrounded by high rise buildings which are using micro cells maybe there is no signal on the water. And the system could have been configured to first search for a home signal and only then go to roaming and still ended up on roaming. Only in such a case would AT&T be liable.

  8. Re:Oscar betrays its Western centerednes on Slumdog Millionaire Takes Home 8 Oscars · · Score: 1

    Oh cmon Rambo 1 may have been about fighting the system but by Rambo 3 it was following the official CIA approved line on Afghanistan.Incidentally Osama was doing the same thing then as now , preventing the education of girls but as it was schools started by Russians CIA felt it perfectly legitimate to provide C4 for suicide bombing the schools. And Die Hard was just blowing up things and people dying in new and creative ways. How does that have ANYthing to do with standing up to the system.

  9. Re:Oscar betrays its Western centerednes on Slumdog Millionaire Takes Home 8 Oscars · · Score: 1

    Oh really you spent time in India? How many times did you find somebody jumping into a tank of shit to get an autograph? To put it simply Slumdog is as realistic a depiction of India as Die Hard is of America. If you are the juvenile type who believes things like Die Hard happen than sure you might believe Slumdog too. Actually if Danny boy had stuck to pure dark comedy it would have been better. Here he tries to parody the Hindi film industry but the parody is too subtle and ends up offending by appearing to be a serious movie. Of course when most of the people(B list directors and technicians mostly) who vote for these awards have not even got passports (their idea of a foreign country is Canada) it is too much to expect cultural sensitivity.

  10. Oscar betrays its Western centerednes on Slumdog Millionaire Takes Home 8 Oscars · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Would Slumdog have been even noticed had it not been made by a British Director? Thousands of movies have been made about poverty in India. They get as much attention as movies made about drugs in American cities. People deal with this shit in their everyday life and dont want to watch it when they pay to enter a theater for some relaxation. Only people who have never seen poverty get their rocks off by watching something like Slumdog. Then again probably why Rambo and Die Hard were so popular outside the States was that guns are a big deal in countries with gun control.

  11. Re:Whoops on Nuclear Subs 'Collide In Ocean' · · Score: 1

    Did you just say SUB marines stay always at the surface of the ocean:0)???

  12. Re:Whoops on Nuclear Subs 'Collide In Ocean' · · Score: 1

    Nah I think the French tried to communicate their position but unfortunately they spoke in English. However everyone knows only immigrants serve in the British-American forces so they should have tried Urdu or Spanish first.

  13. Re:Whoops on Nuclear Subs 'Collide In Ocean' · · Score: 1

    The wall served its purpose. To Invade France the Germans had to invade Belgium first and that made them the villains as the Belgians had done nothing to them. France on the other hand had taken huge parts of German land and industry after WW1 so if Germany had attacked France and Poland and only those countries as these two had taken German land the rest of the world including Britain would have stayed out of the war. But once the Germans drove around and invaded Belgium the gloves came off and it was total war.

  14. Re:Al Jazeera on Battlestar Galactica's Last Days · · Score: 1

    It probably thought BSG=>moral dilemna =>A channel funded by pro western arab government trying to give the non-western point of view=>Al-Jazeera. You do know that Jazeera is just a toned down version of CNN funded by the Emir of one the most pro western states in the gulf. If you really want the other side of the story listen to Hamas TV (the actual moral equivalent of FOX) but then you cant - the Israelis bombed the transmitting station :0)

  15. Biases cancel out on Battlestar Galactica's Last Days · · Score: 1

    Thing is when you hear biased coverage from one side you dont know what is fact and what is spin. However when you hear coverage from both sides the parts which are common to both the stories are very probably the facts and you can safely ignore the parts not common in their stories and hence get an unbiased view of events.

  16. Were they celebrating Sharon's Bday? on Battlestar Galactica's Last Days · · Score: 1

    Most Israelis have served in the IDF and most of them have as a result commmitted war crimes. That doesn't prevent CNN from giving them media time so why should people on the other side of the struggle not get media time?

  17. Works if your partners are Israeli on How Does a 9/80 Work Schedule Work Out? · · Score: 1

    You would love working with an Israeli offsite team. Israel has Fri-Sat as the weekend and Sunday is a working day. Now when we worked with them we had Sat-Sun as our weekend so on Fridays we had no teleconferences or simple phone calls interrupting us and we got a lot done and when the Israelis started working on Sunday they would send off a bunch of emails with questions but as we didnt look at them till Monday half of them were already solved(as in on second thought that already makes sense) and did not even need responses to. One Monday morning I actually had more recall requests waiting then actual messages :)

  18. Re:You mean physical memory right :-) on Why Use Virtual Memory In Modern Systems? · · Score: 1

    I guess you never had an intro to comp sci class where it was taught that RAM and ROM are primary memory, disks are secondary MEMORY and tape backups are tertiary MEMORY. All RAM is memory but all memory is not RAM.

  19. Re:more people in poverty than population of USA on India's Chandrayaan Lands Impact Probe On the Moon · · Score: 1

    I guess you couldnt understand my language. I do have a tendency to use long complicated sentences. What I said was govt should not use capital to generate jobs as any way govt gathers capital has a cost in jobs. This does not mean govt should not gather capital to use for basic science as the advancement of the tech base has a much larger multiplier effect than welfare (which has a zero multipler effect) and any jobs lost is worth the cost to advance the tech base. Of course if the USA would sell this tech and train our scientists in these technology it would cost even less but nationalist and chauvenestic lobbies like the guys who made their careers on non proliferation will not let basic science to be shared.

  20. Re:more people in poverty than population of USA on India's Chandrayaan Lands Impact Probe On the Moon · · Score: 1

    Well having cool things to do for brilliant scientists makes sure the brilliant scientists stay in the country instead of leaving and contributing to the success of NASA and hence opening up the tech gap even more. And if brilliant people stay in the country the second string of people also stay back thinking they might have a shot at doing the cool things and while they wait for their shot they do other things which helps the countries tech base and economy. Just to say if Europe hadnt funded CERN saying basic physics is not worth doing Tim Berners Lee wouldnt have been at the right place and time to invent the WEB. Who knows 5 years from now a brilliant young Indian scientist who stayed back in India inspired by Chandrayaan could invent something equally world changing. For the small amount of money spent on ISRO ( its not even the amount collected as parking tickets in any big Indian city) the potential paybacks are huge. Its like being allowed to play the lottery but with tickets cost .001 cents and jackpots in the billions and with only 5 countries playing the game giving you a 20% chance of hitting the jackpot- you would be a fool to not play and instead donate the .001 cent to charity.

  21. Re:more people in poverty than population of USA on India's Chandrayaan Lands Impact Probe On the Moon · · Score: 1

    The root cause of poverty in India is a lack of capital for industry as for 300 years all excess capital was sucked out of the country and stored in London. That London is the financial capital of the world has a lot to do with the wealth sucked out of India. Before the arrival of the British India had the highest per capita income in the world and it will have the same status again one day but 60 years of independence are not enough to catchup on the capital deficit of 300 years of colonialism. Nor is India an undeveloped area like the America or Oceania where there are excess resources for the taking (the easily available resources were all extracted in the last 4000 years of civilization and the resultant wealth was looted in 300 years of colonialism) India needs to catchup and doing basic science and technology is what we need to do as we are not sitting on a shitload of oil (the root cause of American prosperity) nor did we have colonies(the root cause of European prosperity). Wasting time on stupid European concepts like socialism and welfare is the last thing we need to do. Thankfully Nehru and his generation of Anglophile Brown sahibs are dead and gone and we can get on with the task of building real wealth through hard work rather than expecting handouts. And if lack of capital is the problem the governemnt can hardly solve the problem of job generation as the government itself has no capital other than what it raises through taxes and pump priming through government bailouts of a particular sector generates fewer jobs than the jobs lost in other sectors of the economy due to the higher taxes which are made necessary to pay for bailouts. In short governments cant do anything about alleviating poverty other than provide a level playing field- anything else is just playing with lies, damn lies and statistics.

  22. Re:more people in poverty than population of USA on India's Chandrayaan Lands Impact Probe On the Moon · · Score: 1

    The govts job is not to serve individuals , it is to serve society and do not everything which needs to be done but only that which needs to be done AND cannot be done by the private sector. jobs are best generated by the private sector. The govts job is to provide the regulatory framework like enforcement of contracts, environment standards, carrying out of unprofitable basic research which allow the private sector to create the jobs needed without endangering the safety of society just to increase profit margins. Job creation, poverty alleviation, CHARITY are things best left to the private sector(Mind you a properly regulated private sector not the American model where its OK to be unethical and break laws as long as you bribe/lobby the appropiate politicians or were classmates at an IVY league school with the guy supposed to be regulating you. Thats just crony capitalism which privatizes the profits and socializes the risks)
    India tried the socialist model but it didnt work. Hopefully India will not do the mistake of following the crony capitalist American model and stick to pure well regulated capitalism like Scandinavia.
    So again I say India needs to spend on space till the day it becomes commercially viable and then shift the funds to the next area of basic research. No amount of dole, social security, welfare, disability benefits will solve the problem of poverty. All men are NOT created equal and there will always be more successfull and less successfull people- the govts job is not to pick winners or give consolation prizes to the losers- it is to keep the game fair.

  23. Re:more people in poverty than population of USA on India's Chandrayaan Lands Impact Probe On the Moon · · Score: 1

    Combating poverty is not the governments job. If the poor dont want to be poor anymore they can work harder and pull themselves out of poverty. The govt is meant to do things the private sector cannot and at present space exploration is something the govt cant do. If the money was not spent on space it could be spent on some other research but poverty alleviation or as I call it bread and circuses is a waste of money.

  24. Re:In Other News.... on India's Chandrayaan Lands Impact Probe On the Moon · · Score: 2, Funny

    O cmon Neil Armstrong's first words on the moon were " Thats one small step for man, one giant leap for... Sardarji aap yaha?"

  25. Re:Big duh on Scientists Discover Proteins Controlling Evolution · · Score: 1

    What is this worldview you keep mentioning? Is it a view of the world from the ISS?