The Court of Justice of the European Communities, the ECJ, is there to answer questions on EU Community law from the members national courts. "...the national courts may, and sometimes must, refer to the Court of Justice and ask it to clarify a point concerning the interpretation of Community law". This makes the ECJ Court in fact a Supreme Court for EU Community Law - and nothing like the The Hague.
What country would that be? That does not happen in any proper democratic European nation. I'm of course not including Russia in my definition of Europe - where that might actually happen. Russia is not a fully democratic nation, just like the US. Now, if you only knew the level of taxes in Europe you would not think twice about asking for a refund from the US government. The "insanely" high taxes you mention are about 32-35% for me. We do not pay local, county, state or federal taxes - just the single income tax. From what my American friends tell me the tax burden here is in fact LOWER. However there are about 50 countries in Europe so it certainly varies. Americans have been fed the propaganda about "socialist" Europe for far too long. I am quite happy about living in a safe, democratic country that ranks far above the US:)
I believe the truth is that the Euro has been more worth than the U.S. Dollar for most of its existence and certainly since July 2002. At its introduction in 1999, the euro was traded at US$1.18. It declined and rose again. Over the last 365 days it has been worth an average 1.25 Dollars - never falling below 1.1697 since Dec 2005.
Why should they be able to use their natural language rather than English?
You do realize that most of the world does NOT communicate in English but their native languages? What is the point to denying us the right to use non-Latin characters in domain names when the content is already in this format? You will not stop Germans, French or Russians from writing their websites in their languages because their domains names are in "English".
The reason the Internet is useful is because everyone speaks English, the more divided it becomes the less useful it becomes.
But we dont! Not everyone speaks or writes in English on the web! What kind of argument is that?! The Internet is useful to the local group exactly because it is available in their langauge - and not anything else! Why would a government agency publish in a foreign language? Why would a commercial website list their service in a language the customer does not understand?
Perhaps I am not seeing your point here, I am quite tired and sleepy, but your comment is really strange. -non-latin north european (æøåòóöôéáäâ)
Firstly, it's 12bn over 10 years. Secondly, it's combined funding from the United States, the European Union, China, India, Russia, Japan and South Korea. So yeah, spread out over 10 years and half the worlds population it IS a trivial amount.
Actually the list of who pays should read like this: the European Union and the rest.
"the participating members of the ITER cooperation agreed on the following division of funding contributions: 50% by the hosting member, the European Union and 10% by each non-hosting member (the six non-host partners will now contribute 6/11th of the total cost)" ITER
You do know that Europe has about the same size economy? And WE have free education (elem. - College) and free healthcare plus legally required five weeks paid vacation minimum?
Yeah, I can see your point - I am just a recent convert to the Mac and I still have PCs all over my house. But then again I really prefer it if I could keep games away from my serious business/work system. The way Windows slows down after a while (especially with installing and removing games).. I would love that button IBM put on some systems - instant system "reset". Have BootCamp instantly overwrite the Windows-partition with a "clean" ISO (ready-to-use). The games that are on the Mac like World of Warcraft etc work beautifully - and much better than on my PCs. I am talking about stability and multi-tasking here.
I use such diverse systems as AMD64 X2, P4, Core Duo, G5 and G3s - so we are not talking Apples and oranges hardware/performance wise.
I love it when Americans write about those "Europeans" as if we were one country. There are 50 countries in Europe with a combined population of about 600-700 million people. Land area and population vary greatly. Theres quite a range from the top to bottom (80 million to 50.000). Some countries do have high densities - however the countries that score well are mostly countries with small, rural populations and very LOW density. Take Norway for example (no. 7) with 12/km2 versus the USA (no 12) with 31/km2!
The primary cause was overload of the network due to..
Did you read the linked article? The same news was written in newspapers all over Europe. Even my quote says it was "possibly" the cause.
Regardless of the cause it is still not a case for extensive monitoring of the network. My point was that the Americans have problems identifying where their problems begin - in Germany and Europe that does not seem to be the case.
P.S. Thanks to Deutsche Welle TV I know a little about the German windpower issues. However what is the difference between storing energy production from wind turbines and solar power? Would you not need to "store" it either way? After all solar energy is hardly a 24 hour pursuit?
The European power outage has nothing to do with this article since the "network became overloaded possibly because it shut down the transmission line over the river".
I see your point and the distinction is a valid point - I did make a mistake in reading "control" into it. Of course the US is entitled to feel strongly about a project it gave life to:)
When I claimed China was building their own "ChinaNet" I was of course only putting a subjective label on their efforts at regulating, censoring and policing their own population. I just want to point out that this is of course just my view on their efforts and that they in no way have made this a matter of public record. Like many technologies the world uses the Chinese are actively working to co-opt and lock non-Chinese out of their domestic market. I believe this fits into their greater scheme of things, perhaps a bit sinister but the evidence speaks for itself in the form of the following: their own DVD format, cellphone protocols, CPUs, computer operating systems (based on Linux) and of course network routers designed to isolate "their" Internet..
The Chinese have actively pirated, reverse engineered and disregarded patents for quite some time in efforts aimed at developing China and enabling their economy to actively compete with the Western world on every level including developing technologies - not just producing them any longer. I believe China is seeking to "catch up" and restore their national pride. They rightly belong amongst the worlds greatest nations they just do not seem to be willing to wait for long.
I was obviously being very simplistic and provocative in my previous post - the point I wanted to make was that the Internet is more than the tiny network it once was. And I am certain it was not created in a vacuum. And if the US wanted to take away the Internet from the world - Europe should claim the Web for itself;) Its all laughable of course. I wont even hazard a guess at what percentage of the IP involved is owned by corporations nowadays.
start from scratch and invent your own Internet
Europe, Japan and China could do that very easily. We would not end up with a Internet of course. I believe we all still want one, right? In reality you are discussing the history, intellectual property rights and the patents behind the network - when the US government is worried about censorship, regulations and jurisdiction.
Since we wrote the refence implementations and paid for the infrastructure that was used while the network grew, I can see why we are attached to it.
I will of course grant you that the US did create the network - however the real question should be what [part of the physical network] did you pay for? Most people on/. hardly seem understand the difference between the global network infrastructure and the root servers. The only really interesting issue is of course the root servers. The network itself is not the property of the US government - and certainly not outside the US. Most of the physical, rather than nominal, root servers are now outside the United States as well.
Why shouldnt the world simply decide to set up a new regime of root servers under their control? Hardly a great feat. The US would simply be left out of the loop. Most people would not miss it either - local content is what the masses want. The US would of course suffer from a decrease in economic activity and innovation. The Chinese are already constructing their ChinaNet - making it impossible for foreign companies to offer products and services.
Many of the arguments stated in those articles lack evidence or credibility
I do not fully agree with you on this - the Wikipedia might not be the best of sources - however the disputes are real and relevant.
The question of the telephone is a very good example of this:
As you yourself said with regards to the transistor the patent is interesting but the actual inventor more so: "Alexander Graham Bell was the first to patent the telephone."
The House of Representatives passed a Resolution on June 11, 2002, honoring Meucci's contributions and work. A European scientist that emigrated to the US;)
Ultimately this does not matter as long as humanity enjoys the fruits of their labours. It is all a matter of national pride and vanity. Something we should all try to rise above. As friends Europeans and Americans should certainly try our best to cooperate to reach common goals - and agree to disagree on other points.
I think the Internet is fine as it is.
I beg to differ on this point and I have two issues that need resolution:
The question of legal jurisdiction and sovereignty When the US legal apparatus takes aim at legal entities in foreign jurisdictions attempting to apply US legislation on sovereign countries. This could not happen under ITU control.
David Linhardt, owner/operator of a Chicago-based bulk email outfit e360 Insight LLC that was listed by Spamhaus for sending spam to Spamhaus users, filed a lawsuit in an Illinois court with no jurisdiction over the United Kingdom and obtained a default judgement ordering Spamhaus in the United Kingdom to pay Linhardt damages, to remove evidence of Linhardt's spamming from Spamhaus' ROKSO database and to cease blocking Linhardt's spam sent to Spamhaus users.Link
And the matter of language and culture Today it is not very well adapted to international users needs in terms of domain names and non-ASCII characters used in European languages and Asian alphabets.
According to memory and Wikipedia a node in London was added in 1973 through a sat link via Norway. The network has always been international in nature. What would the DARPAnet have become without it? Well Tim Berners-Lee would not have created the WWW without the CERN institute being connected. It just goes to prove that the initial network might have been fully American and US funded at one time - but for the last 40 years it has been a shared project. I speaks well of the international cooperative aspect of the project - or at least for the democratic nations included.
Of course the Web would be very little worth without the actual network - however is it unique or impossible to duplicate or even improve? First of all consider Tim Berners-Lee role in inventing the World Wide Web. He is certainly a Major player - and again he is not American. Dont forget all the other contributors is what I am saying.
I agree with you on the whole never-ending debate - we could go on and on. The UN was created by the US. Today it should probably be reformed anyway. The issue is not with the chaos of the General Assembly and the impractical nature of the organization. The ITU has worked very well for international telephone communcations - and I believe something like the ITU would work for the Internet as well.
The European Union has the right to regulate its market all it wants. If Microsoft is convicted in court and accepts this verdict so be it. Any company wishing to sell products in the EU market has to obey European regulations and laws. This is no different from the US market. Why should it be any different? This is all a game anyway between the big players (MS and governments).
I do not want Microsoft to leave Europe entirely - but we do have the European creation "Linux" in case you forgot. And I love my Macs! No problem there. The US ingenuity has always been a product of the great variety of influences and not least the people arriving there from all over the world. And notably scientists from Europe..:D
The really interesting point here is not that of a US-EU trade conflict at all - this is about Western democracies opposed to countries like Iran, China, Saudi-Arabia etc. We should realize that the US and EU most of all - agree - on the important questions in life. Democracy, freedom of speech, religion and thought. We should unite and form a new and equal union of TRULY democratic nations - and leave the UN to die. But we would still need an international organization to regulate the Internet.
Granted, America has been at the forefront of technology - with much help from the rest of the world. The space program with German scientists is a good example. And granted that Tim Berners-Lee created a protocol, an application and so on. Why did the US give Europeans access? Because cooperation of this kind breeds innovation. Would it have happened anyway? Please consider the French Minitel.
The network itself is no longer in American hands - what part of that network is owned by the US today? Very little. In Europe and the rest of the world its owned by national and private companies. It would be impractical to restrict or demand that the world stop using this technology now anyway.
I believe the issue is mostly one of the West versus the Rest - why would the democractic nations want to surrender any control to the likes of China, Iran or even Russia? Yes, I love freedom of speech too! In fact my countrys embassy burned in Syria because of a silly cartoon! The ITU has worked very well for decades now - you dont see China restricting your phonecalls? People confuse the issue of UN control with the General Assembly chaos and other programs (Oil For Food). I dont care much for the UN - but I believe the ITU functions well enough.
Now for some Wikipedia quotes:
The telephone: The identity of the inventor of the electric telephone remains in dispute. Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray, amongst others, have all been credited with the invention.
Electricity Though Benjamin Franklin's famous "invention" of electricity by flying a kite in a thunderstorm turned out to be more fiction than fact, his theories on the relationship between lightning and static electricity sparked the interest of later scientists whose work provided the basis for modern electrical technology. Most notably these include Luigi Galvani, Alessandro Volta, Michael Faraday, André-Marie Ampère, and Georg Simon Ohm. No to mention such giants of electrical engineering as Nikola Tesla, Samuel Morse, Antonio Meucci, Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, Werner von Siemens, Charles Steinmetz, and Alexander Graham Bell.
The Transistor The first patents for the transistor principle were registered in Germany in 1928 by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld. In 1934 German physicist Dr. Oskar Heil patented the field-effect transistor. It is not clear whether either design was ever built, and this is generally considered unlikely. The first practical point-contact transistor was built at Bell Labs.
Aviation Currently, the Wright brothers feat is officially recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) as being the first controlled, powered, sustained flight involving a heavier-than-air vehicle, using mechanically unassisted takeoff. Nevertheless, the Wright brothers' claim to this aviation "first" has been subject to counter-claims by various parties. Much controversy persists around the many competing claims of early aviators.
Light Obviously God was an American!;) He probably arrived on the Mayflower..
This old myth again.. Yes, the US did invent the basic Internet. However a European, Tim Berners-Lee, invented the Web while working at a research institute in Europe (CERN). So what part do you insist on keeping? Because if its this old argument again - Europe keeps the Web - the US can keep the Newsgroups and FTP:)
your unwillingness to integrate these "Peasants" into your society.
Unwilling? Talk about reading what you want in to other peoples opinions. Of course we prefer integrating people into our societies and economies. I just pointed out that so many are unable or unwilling to work that our system is in heavy demand. This would be exactly the opposite of your claim that Europe does not take care of its immigrant populations!! Not to mention the general nature of your claim.
Immigration from some areas of the world are harder to tackle (Africa) especially the illegals ones. In some cases me calling them "peasants" is correct and reflects their skills. European farmers are not exactly looking to expand - nor do they need traditional small scale African agriculture methods. It is not always easy to make first generation immigrants productive when they come from non-industrial countries. It does not stop them from claiming benefits and hanging out with their fellow countrymen. Nor does it stop them from far too easily falling into crime. As statistics will show you they are proportionally overrepresented. And not just because they dont have skills - simply basic knowledge of the language would help. Most countries offer free language training classes. But even after twenty years in Europe there are still immigrants that speak little or nothing of the local language.
Then again even if they are doctors, engineers or lawyers they often arrive in countries with unemployment problems themselves - and I am not even touching the question of compatible/acceptable educational backgrounds, social networks and language skills. We speak more than just English in Europe you know?
My point was that many of them have need more investment to make them productive. Some Eastern Europeans have a far easier task of finding work because at least they come from industrial nations. And often have good enough language skills to be useful. But they all receive the generous welfare benefits and services citizens are entitled to.
I'm sorry if there are Socialists and socialists (note case)
Not all - just that the "socialists" are more or less reformed and have nothing to do with their past semi-communist history. Calling Europe socialist is so old. Today Europe is mostly run by Social-Democractic or Center-Right governments. The biggest party group in the European Parliament is the right wing EPP.
Since you claim immigration is so wonderful in the EU, can we just ship Americans over who want to live in a social-democracy utopia so badly?
Hehe, I do not think so but if they apply maybe they will get work visas. The greatest problem I see with immigration is that many economic migrants falsely apply for asylum claiming discrimination back home. Far too many of the immigrants arriving in Europe are of this kind. My own country only accepts UN quotas and asylum seekers, so that just leaves asylum claims.
I have to point out that the EU is NOT the government of Europe. And that the national governments of member nations like France are not like U.S. states! It means the EU fines go towards the EU budget whilst any French government bureau is financed by French taxes and regulated by French law.
Sure, gotta love that unemployment rate and annual GDP growth as low as.1% in France and Germany
Given that the European Union includes over twenty-five countries (the Common market + 3 countries) pointing at France and Germany makes little sense. However I will grant you that they are some of the largest economies in the Union. Germany is still recovering from a recession and is developing/moving in the former communist Eastern and Central European nations. Think of the US absorbing Canada and Mexico. France actually enjoyed 1.6% GDP growth. The US might enjoy 3.6% growth however you also have the largest national debt ever! Great Economy!
Slashdot Mirror
What country would that be? That does not happen in any proper democratic European nation. I'm of course not including Russia in my definition of Europe - where that might actually happen. Russia is not a fully democratic nation, just like the US. Now, if you only knew the level of taxes in Europe you would not think twice about asking for a refund from the US government. The "insanely" high taxes you mention are about 32-35% for me. We do not pay local, county, state or federal taxes - just the single income tax. From what my American friends tell me the tax burden here is in fact LOWER. However there are about 50 countries in Europe so it certainly varies. Americans have been fed the propaganda about "socialist" Europe for far too long. I am quite happy about living in a safe, democratic country that ranks far above the US :)
I believe the truth is that the Euro has been more worth than the U.S. Dollar for most of its existence and certainly since July 2002. At its introduction in 1999, the euro was traded at US$1.18. It declined and rose again. Over the last 365 days it has been worth an average 1.25 Dollars - never falling below 1.1697 since Dec 2005.
But we dont! Not everyone speaks or writes in English on the web! What kind of argument is that?! The Internet is useful to the local group exactly because it is available in their langauge - and not anything else! Why would a government agency publish in a foreign language? Why would a commercial website list their service in a language the customer does not understand?
Perhaps I am not seeing your point here, I am quite tired and sleepy, but your comment is really strange.
-non-latin north european (æøåòóöôéáäâ)
"the participating members of the ITER cooperation agreed on the following division of funding contributions: 50% by the hosting member, the European Union and 10% by each non-hosting member (the six non-host partners will now contribute 6/11th of the total cost)" ITER
You do know that Europe has about the same size economy? And WE have free education (elem. - College) and free healthcare plus legally required five weeks paid vacation minimum?
Yeah, I can see your point - I am just a recent convert to the Mac and I still have PCs all over my house. But then again I really prefer it if I could keep games away from my serious business/work system. The way Windows slows down after a while (especially with installing and removing games).. I would love that button IBM put on some systems - instant system "reset". Have BootCamp instantly overwrite the Windows-partition with a "clean" ISO (ready-to-use). The games that are on the Mac like World of Warcraft etc work beautifully - and much better than on my PCs. I am talking about stability and multi-tasking here.
I use such diverse systems as AMD64 X2, P4, Core Duo, G5 and G3s - so we are not talking Apples and oranges hardware/performance wise.
Have you even heard about the switch to Intel? My Macs can boot Windows (Boot Camp) just fine - and I can play Windows games all I want.
I love it when Americans write about those "Europeans" as if we were one country. There are 50 countries in Europe with a combined population of about 600-700 million people. Land area and population vary greatly. Theres quite a range from the top to bottom (80 million to 50.000).
Some countries do have high densities - however the countries that score well are mostly countries with small, rural populations and very LOW density. Take Norway for example (no. 7) with 12/km2 versus the USA (no 12) with 31/km2!
Regardless of the cause it is still not a case for extensive monitoring of the network. My point was that the Americans have problems identifying where their problems begin - in Germany and Europe that does not seem to be the case.
P.S. Thanks to Deutsche Welle TV I know a little about the German windpower issues. However what is the difference between storing energy production from wind turbines and solar power? Would you not need to "store" it either way? After all solar energy is hardly a 24 hour pursuit?
Link
I see your point and the distinction is a valid point - I did make a mistake in reading "control" into it. Of course the US is entitled to feel strongly about a project it gave life to :)
When I claimed China was building their own "ChinaNet" I was of course only putting a subjective label on their efforts at regulating, censoring and policing their own population. I just want to point out that this is of course just my view on their efforts and that they in no way have made this a matter of public record. Like many technologies the world uses the Chinese are actively working to co-opt and lock non-Chinese out of their domestic market. I believe this fits into their greater scheme of things, perhaps a bit sinister but the evidence speaks for itself in the form of the following: their own DVD format, cellphone protocols, CPUs, computer operating systems (based on Linux) and of course network routers designed to isolate "their" Internet..
The Chinese have actively pirated, reverse engineered and disregarded patents for quite some time in efforts aimed at developing China and enabling their economy to actively compete with the Western world on every level including developing technologies - not just producing them any longer. I believe China is seeking to "catch up" and restore their national pride. They rightly belong amongst the worlds greatest nations they just do not seem to be willing to wait for long.
Europe, Japan and China could do that very easily. We would not end up with a Internet of course. I believe we all still want one, right? In reality you are discussing the history, intellectual property rights and the patents behind the network - when the US government is worried about censorship, regulations and jurisdiction.
I will of course grant you that the US did create the network - however the real question should be what [part of the physical network] did you pay for? Most people on
Why shouldnt the world simply decide to set up a new regime of root servers under their control? Hardly a great feat. The US would simply be left out of the loop. Most people would not miss it either - local content is what the masses want. The US would of course suffer from a decrease in economic activity and innovation. The Chinese are already constructing their ChinaNet - making it impossible for foreign companies to offer products and services.
The question of the telephone is a very good example of this:
As you yourself said with regards to the transistor the patent is interesting but the actual inventor more so: "Alexander Graham Bell was the first to patent the telephone."
To quote the Library of Congress: " Attributing the true inventor or inventors to a specific invention can be tricky business. Often credit goes to the inventor of the most practical or best working invention rather than to the original inventor(s). This happens to be the case of the invention of the telephone! "
The House of Representatives passed a Resolution on June 11, 2002, honoring Meucci's contributions and work. A European scientist that emigrated to the US
Ultimately this does not matter as long as humanity enjoys the fruits of their labours. It is all a matter of national pride and vanity. Something we should all try to rise above. As friends Europeans and Americans should certainly try our best to cooperate to reach common goals - and agree to disagree on other points.
I beg to differ on this point and I have two issues that need resolution:
The question of legal jurisdiction and sovereignty
When the US legal apparatus takes aim at legal entities in foreign jurisdictions attempting to apply US legislation on sovereign countries. This could not happen under ITU control.
David Linhardt, owner/operator of a Chicago-based bulk email outfit e360 Insight LLC that was listed by Spamhaus for sending spam to Spamhaus users, filed a lawsuit in an Illinois court with no jurisdiction over the United Kingdom and obtained a default judgement ordering Spamhaus in the United Kingdom to pay Linhardt damages, to remove evidence of Linhardt's spamming from Spamhaus' ROKSO database and to cease blocking Linhardt's spam sent to Spamhaus users. Link
And the matter of language and culture
Today it is not very well adapted to international users needs in terms of domain names and non-ASCII characters used in European languages and Asian alphabets.
According to memory and Wikipedia a node in London was added in 1973 through a sat link via Norway. The network has always been international in nature. What would the DARPAnet have become without it? Well Tim Berners-Lee would not have created the WWW without the CERN institute being connected. It just goes to prove that the initial network might have been fully American and US funded at one time - but for the last 40 years it has been a shared project. I speaks well of the international cooperative aspect of the project - or at least for the democratic nations included.
Of course the Web would be very little worth without the actual network - however is it unique or impossible to duplicate or even improve? First of all consider Tim Berners-Lee role in inventing the World Wide Web. He is certainly a Major player - and again he is not American. Dont forget all the other contributors is what I am saying.
:D
I agree with you on the whole never-ending debate - we could go on and on. The UN was created by the US. Today it should probably be reformed anyway. The issue is not with the chaos of the General Assembly and the impractical nature of the organization. The ITU has worked very well for international telephone communcations - and I believe something like the ITU would work for the Internet as well.
The European Union has the right to regulate its market all it wants. If Microsoft is convicted in court and accepts this verdict so be it. Any company wishing to sell products in the EU market has to obey European regulations and laws. This is no different from the US market. Why should it be any different? This is all a game anyway between the big players (MS and governments).
I do not want Microsoft to leave Europe entirely - but we do have the European creation "Linux" in case you forgot. And I love my Macs! No problem there. The US ingenuity has always been a product of the great variety of influences and not least the people arriving there from all over the world. And notably scientists from Europe..
The really interesting point here is not that of a US-EU trade conflict at all - this is about Western democracies opposed to countries like Iran, China, Saudi-Arabia etc. We should realize that the US and EU most of all - agree - on the important questions in life. Democracy, freedom of speech, religion and thought. We should unite and form a new and equal union of TRULY democratic nations - and leave the UN to die. But we would still need an international organization to regulate the Internet.
Granted, America has been at the forefront of technology - with much help from the rest of the world. The space program with German scientists is a good example. And granted that Tim Berners-Lee created a protocol, an application and so on. Why did the US give Europeans access? Because cooperation of this kind breeds innovation. Would it have happened anyway? Please consider the French Minitel.
;) He probably arrived on the Mayflower..
The network itself is no longer in American hands - what part of that network is owned by the US today? Very little. In Europe and the rest of the world its owned by national and private companies. It would be impractical to restrict or demand that the world stop using this technology now anyway.
I believe the issue is mostly one of the West versus the Rest - why would the democractic nations want to surrender any control to the likes of China, Iran or even Russia? Yes, I love freedom of speech too! In fact my countrys embassy burned in Syria because of a silly cartoon! The ITU has worked very well for decades now - you dont see China restricting your phonecalls? People confuse the issue of UN control with the General Assembly chaos and other programs (Oil For Food). I dont care much for the UN - but I believe the ITU functions well enough.
Now for some Wikipedia quotes:
The telephone:
The identity of the inventor of the electric telephone remains in dispute. Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray, amongst others, have all been credited with the invention.
Electricity
Though Benjamin Franklin's famous "invention" of electricity by flying a kite in a thunderstorm turned out to be more fiction than fact, his theories on the relationship between lightning and static electricity sparked the interest of later scientists whose work provided the basis for modern electrical technology. Most notably these include Luigi Galvani, Alessandro Volta, Michael Faraday, André-Marie Ampère, and Georg Simon Ohm. No to mention such giants of electrical engineering as Nikola Tesla, Samuel Morse, Antonio Meucci, Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, Werner von Siemens, Charles Steinmetz, and Alexander Graham Bell.
The Transistor
The first patents for the transistor principle were registered in Germany in 1928 by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld. In 1934 German physicist Dr. Oskar Heil patented the field-effect transistor. It is not clear whether either design was ever built, and this is generally considered unlikely. The first practical point-contact transistor was built at Bell Labs.
Aviation
Currently, the Wright brothers feat is officially recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) as being the first controlled, powered, sustained flight involving a heavier-than-air vehicle, using mechanically unassisted takeoff. Nevertheless, the Wright brothers' claim to this aviation "first" has been subject to counter-claims by various parties. Much controversy persists around the many competing claims of early aviators.
Light
Obviously God was an American!
This old myth again.. Yes, the US did invent the basic Internet. However a European, Tim Berners-Lee, invented the Web while working at a research institute in Europe (CERN). So what part do you insist on keeping? Because if its this old argument again - Europe keeps the Web - the US can keep the Newsgroups and FTP :)
Except Germans call their city München and not Munich.
Oh, and there is no 'k'-sound in the proper german pronounciation.
Borg is a really good surname if you consider it means "castle" in his native Norway. He is obviously all about secure walls and keeping enemies out ;)
Borg means castle in Norwegian, so hes all about security and keeping threats outside the walls ;)
Unwilling? Talk about reading what you want in to other peoples opinions. Of course we prefer integrating people into our
societies and economies. I just pointed out that so many are unable or unwilling to work that our system is in heavy demand. This would be exactly the opposite of your claim that Europe does not take care of its immigrant populations!! Not to mention the general nature of your claim.
Immigration from some areas of the world are harder to tackle (Africa) especially the illegals ones. In some cases me calling them "peasants" is correct and reflects their skills. European farmers are not exactly looking to expand - nor do they need traditional small scale African agriculture methods. It is not always easy to make first generation immigrants productive when they come from non-industrial countries. It does not stop them from claiming benefits and hanging out with their fellow countrymen. Nor does it stop them from far too easily falling into crime. As statistics will show you they are proportionally overrepresented. And not just because they dont have skills - simply basic knowledge of the language would help. Most countries offer free language training classes. But even after twenty years in Europe there are still immigrants that speak little or nothing of the local language.
Then again even if they are doctors, engineers or lawyers they often arrive in countries with unemployment problems themselves - and I am not even touching the question of compatible/acceptable educational backgrounds, social networks and language skills. We speak more than just English in Europe you know?
My point was that many of them have need more investment to make them productive. Some Eastern Europeans have a far easier task of finding work because at least they come from industrial nations. And often have good enough language skills to be useful. But they all receive the generous welfare benefits and services citizens are entitled to.
Not all - just that the "socialists" are more or less reformed and have nothing to do with their past semi-communist history. Calling Europe socialist is so old. Today Europe is mostly run by Social-Democractic or Center-Right governments. The biggest party group in the European Parliament is the right wing EPP.
Hehe, I do not think so but if they apply maybe they will get work visas. The greatest problem I see with immigration is that many economic migrants falsely apply for asylum claiming discrimination back home. Far too many of the immigrants arriving in Europe are of this kind. My own country only accepts UN quotas and asylum seekers, so that just leaves asylum claims.
Sure, but this is an American website - can we trust people to know these things? :) There is just too much French-bashing going on already.
I have to point out that the EU is NOT the government of Europe. And that the national governments of member nations like France are not like U.S. states! It means the EU fines go towards the EU budget whilst any French government bureau is financed by French taxes and regulated by French law.