I would love to be able to buy a phone without a camera, but with the longer battery life and the memorycard you want while having a high-definition screen and a workable keyboard, so that I can really use it as a poor-mans PC/terminal when on-the-road.
The Nokia 6820 goes a long way but the keyboard needs a bit of touching up still and the screen needs to become an OLED screen of resolution comparable to this Casio Screen. Oh, and Nokia, if you're listening: make the damn MMC-card hot-swapable and accessible from the outside!
Now that Sounds like a Home entertainment system done right. As in: integrating all your communication and media needs in one platform.
If you're willing to go all out on Myth for your video/audio demands (think central encoding server with Raid and multiple encoder cards as back-end and multiple diskless Via mini-itx with h/w decoding, dvi-out, LCD-panel, DTS 5.1 as front-ends) then why not add a camera and a microphone: video-phone throughout the house!
Now for the integration with building infrastructure. HVAC/climate-control, security systems, etc. If that becomes easier and cheaper, you really get your 'house of the future'.
Your argument being that choosing the best from two evils is ok, especially since they should be so closely together in their politics that it really doesn't matter which of the two is elected anyway? And you dare call that system good or even democratic?
I hope you're a succesfull Troll and not representative of how informed US citizens think about the US presidential election system...
I'm the type of person that rather replies than mods down, but I admit that was I tempted there for a moment.
Comparing the shift from CRT to LCD with the shift from LCD to OLED is nonsensical. CRT wasn't just an aged technology when LCD finally was easy enough to produce and reliable enough for greater use, it was positively ancient. It was time for something new. LCD was dramatically more different from CRT than LCD is from OLED in almost every aspect and so it had an easy 'in' in the market when it arrived.
Not so with OLED. OLED has many of the same characteristics of LCD, but it enhances on them. Not a radical change like LCD, but enough to make it very interesting as an evolutionary step up.
And therein lies the problem: LCD is barely out of its infancy and the new kid on the block is right on its heels. No time to recoup R&D or even just the cost of the production facilities!
I predict we will see lagging in the introduction of OLED. Perhaps not as bad as it would have been in a less competitive and global market than that of computer hardware today, but still.
If I'm correct, and in the coming years an even better new technique evolves, a higher evolutionary step on the ladder of display tech, then maybe LCD will be stretched to bridge the gap. If nothing new comes around in LCD-land, then OLED will certainly become big. Just not as fast as I hoped for when I first learned about it.
OLED holds many promises because it is, as the name indicates, a LED type of display. In other words, you don't block/filter an underlying lightsource like with LCD-type screens. Every pixel itself emits light. This makes for better image quality at higher resolution and less power consumption plus, as a bonus, no vulnerable, ill-distrubuted central light-source.
Once (if?) the optimal solution is found to creating the seperate Organic colors reliably (and currently the biggest problem: durably) OLED should overtake all other techniques. Especially since some production techniques currently being pioneered do not have an inherent limitation to the substrate size (read: Mega sized displayes at Giga resolutions, ultraflat, high light-output and low power...).
I say should because LCD is currently the entrenched technique and I don't think all investments have been recoverd yet. The question then becomes: is the best (cheapest to produce) OLED solution being brought forward by a current player with LCD 'capital' to defend or an outsider? If the latter, OLED has a fighting chance, if the former, we'll have to see if several producers have competing designs to make OLED still take off. A lot of money has gone into those factories, and even if they are relatively easily converted to OLED, most companies don't jump for joy at the prospect of destroying existing investments for a newer technology. (Or any new investments for that matter;D)
Recouping costs may hold OLED back more than any technological hurdle, I'm sorry to say.
Although I have the mod points to fix the parent, I won't because the moderation was fine. Your post, however, deserver an "overrated". But because I'd like to think of myself as having standards (not to be confused with morals), I'll just reply:
Bullshit! Firefox is faster than IE. If the grandparent is talking about load time: that point has been beaten to death by now. IE 'loads' faster because it doesn't. That has been done at boot time. Keep Firefox open at all times and then test speed differences.
Untill you get a clue: people with lesser standards, mod parent down!;p
In Jack Vance's "Eyes of the overworld", 'orbs' are used to change the users perception of reality into on of eternal paradise. Without the orbs one percieves the world as it really is, with the orbs everything seems to be pure bliss. In the story, some social adoptations are described to circumvent some of the physical problems associated with such an altered reality.
Basically you can see shades of "The Matrix" and of this new Vinge story. What struck me most about it was that the inhabittants of this virtual reality start to neglect the underlying reality because it doesn't matter if everything is shit, as long as it looks ok to them.
If you start thinking about the implications, considering natural human laziness, I'm starting to think this future might not be as bright as it first seems.
Published in 1966, although being just a short story written in a rather difficult style, I think the 'predictions' of Vance are more accurate than those of Vinge, or the Matrix for that matter...
Re:Mutations, founder's effect, and inbreeding
on
Mutation Creates SuperKid
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I had no mod points to give so I can respond under my own name, but I second the AC's reaction that this is one of those memorable posts that you wish you could give a bonus on top of some mod-points. If this is your own writing, please keep it up, it makes up for all the trolls and blabbering idiots out there.
Thank you. I'll vote for her then. Now for the name of the 'right-wing' (I assume(d) it's a VVD rep) MEP. I'd like to let him/her know why I won't be voting for them.
Silly this, doing this in english while we probably both are more proficient in Dutch...;)
Why do you bother posting a reply? If he isn't going to change the outcome, why would you spill your time on trying to convince him he's wrong in doing what he does?
Please crawl back under your stone, with the rest of the non-voters and don't come crying if the politicians do something you abhore, because you just gave up your right to complain.
Please please please do spill the beans. What were the names of these two politicians?
If the VVD member affirms his stance (and I will ask) I will never ever vote VVD again. That kind of 'achterkamertjespolitiek' was exactly what the late P. Fortuyn was up against. If he wasn't right about anything else, at least on this he was right on the money.
If you'll spill the name I'll vote for the D66 person that gave you a good reply and I'll send a message his/her way to express my feelings and why I voted for them. I agree with more D66 points anyway so it won't go 'against the grain' for my political 'color' anyway.
They'd been down that road already. Twice. I guess Saddam wanted a change of adversaries. Just like you tend to get bored with the characters in your favourite FPS game...
Go ahead. Laugh. It's not as if we give a damn any more about anything except perhaps a few soldiers lives. Oh wait. Politicians care about the oil, too!
('My' country, The Netherlands, unfortunatly has soldiers in Iraq. Now that they're there, politicians start yammering about the 'risks' these soldiers have to take to do their job. Puh lease! The ammounts of truly innocent Iraqi men, women and children dead already mean nothing to them. I hate this 'war' a lot.)
If you're confused now, don't be ashamed. It's intentionally made this complicated to evade or muddle up international discussions about our drugs policies...;)
This message brought to you from the Marihuana capitol of the world.
Here in the Netherlands, better known as Marihuana country, you can buy, smoke or otherwise consume grass as you like. Growing it, however, is still prohibited and prosecuted.
Lately there has been an upsurge in the active search for growers because companies are starting to excert pressure on politicians to protect their bottom line (sound familiar?). Mainly electricity companies and home-renting companies complain because of tapped electricity and damage to houses.
Only recently the idea of scanning houses for IR came up and over here that didn't seem to provoke a privacy discussion which I think is appaling. Anyway, now that you've given me this idea I'll try that, since fighting the searches themselves on the legalese is difficult.
Furthermore, in some other child-posts, there are some other very neat ideas for covering up ones growing 'plant'. People tap electricity to prevent the power company from selling you out to the cops if you suddenly use a lot more power/water.
Just install a fishtank, put some exotic looking but cold-water fish in them and claim you're heating it! Put a hot-water solar collector on the roof, problem of radiation cover solved...
Maybe now I too will start to grow some, for my personal consumption of course...;)
Right, blame the US because your representatives screwed you over. That's is the funnies thing I've heard in a long, long time. Like the EU doesn't have the power to stick it to the US if it feels so inclined. Just look at US tarrifs on steel imports. The EU didn't like it and threated to put tarrifs in place on US agricultural exports that would hit Bush where it hurts (which agricultural exporters in South who are Bush supports) and when push came to shove he backed down.
This is so misguided that I don't know where to start. I'm not blaming the US for our representatives 'screwing us over'. The US is trying to do what is best for the US and the fact the the 'European parliament' decided to roll over for it has everything to do with the fact that the countries that make up 'Europe' are far too dependant on the US for far too many things.
Thankfully you yourself give the perfect example. The steel tarrifs. The tarrifs that were illegal to begin with but where the European union decided to take the high road and go to court over it instead of just retaliating immediatly. The tarrifs that hit European bussinesses where it hurts so your petty and unprofitable steel industry had the time to restructure instead of die out altogether from fierce free-market competition that Mr. Bush so vehemently defends (lipservice).
Retribution that was held back untill legal proceedings through the WTO were over, including all possible appeals. All of which were _lost_ by the US governement. And then, _only_ then the EU threatened sanctions and decided to threaten in a way that it knew Mr. Bush couldn't ignore: in his electoral chances.
So your precious Mr. Bush, derided almost all over the world, 'backed down' because he knows only one thing: polls. And that is why the US political system, in all its inherent beauty, is being slaughtered at the moment. By greedy, egotistical, megalomaniac politicians that think they know better than anyone anywhere.
It was an instance where the 'European politicians' actually achieved something. And even that was only because it wasn't part of the 'political process' but of a determined committee that was being lobbied US-style by our steel producers and backed by Japan, Australia and others. And you know what? It was done in this way because we are so bloody dependant that if we had done it Bush-style, retaliating on the spot, it had hurt us even more.
So before you start bashing at Europe, take a good look at your home situation. A Dutch proverb says: try not to remove the splinter from anothers eye before removing the log from ones own. In this case, if _everyone_ is saying that the US is evil, might it not be time to reconsider if they might, even in the slightest way, be right?
As I've stated in another reply, we still have to get our opportunity to correct matters through a ballot box on the patent issue. Untill then all bets are off. But be sure to understand that we brought nothing upon ourselves. 'European politicians' who are not brought it upon us because of US preasure.
EXACTLY! The US press likes nothing more than show the rest of the world how evil the US is. Continually and at loud volume. And then Hollywood goes and portays a completely fictitious culture to boot. The US is *NOT* what you see on in the media and the movies.
ROFLMAO!!! Now that is rich!
So your perfect little 'independant' media are what keep the US honest and accountable and 'our' silly and scared news outlets only let out what the 'European' politicians want to tell us...
It'll be a sad day when European media start reporting the way the US media do. Not because the US media paint such a rotten picture of the US (European media and media elsewhere in the world paint a far worse picture of the US, don't worry about that) but because that would mean there would be no really independant and critical mainstream media left in Europe.
I'll give you the fact that media are needed to keep politicians in check, but the fact that you refer to US media as the shining light and example for their European counterparts is utterly ridiculous.
Even though the political process of 'Europe' is murky, un-democratic and silly, the politicians don't try to abuse the system and hide the issues like the US congress so often does with 'rider bills'. The problem is that the 'honesty' of European politicians merely is lip-service to make it look like they are acting democratic. The process itself resembles nothing like a democratic body.
My impression of your system has nothing to do with Hollywood though, and everything with the media-outlets you yourself praise. That and the more independant outlook of BBC world and our Dutch newschannels and the internet. Don't assume every-one everywhere simply consumes what Hollywood produces.
And for the fact that Europe has every fault the US does: despite what your media tell you, there is no 'Europe' and it therefore cannot have the same flaws. The parts that make up 'Europe' have their own flaws that'll do nicely for us, we have no need for 'your' flaws.
Actually, I'll be campaigning to re-elect him. Believe it or not, more than half of us like President Bush right now, and I happened to be in that majority.
Now is your time to shut up then. Even though you _know_ he's part of the problem you will not excercise your opportunity to get rid of him. We have that part still ahead of us. (Completely aside: a majority of US citizens actually doesn't 'like' Bush, it's just that his opponents are split. Talk about insight in your own politics.)
Then why do so many Europeans get off complaining about "ignorant Americans"? I read the news and follow my country's political machinations. When your countrymen fail to do the same, somehow it's my fault as a US citizen?
Because most are. And as I said in my grand-parent post, so are most Europeans but they _still_ know more about your political system than US citizens do on average. (note: I'm talking about the system, as I pointed out in grand-parent, US citizens are more likely to know the people in the system.) 'We' Europeans don't get our own political system because by all definitions it isn't. It is a strange construction of something but it sure as hell isn't anything like a real political system. It is mostly like a thoughtlessly slapped on 'extraneus bit' to 'unite' all the very seperate European countries. In all honesty, the basic democratic system the US has, including it's bill of rights, isn't at all bad. It sure as hell is better than the European 'equivalent'. It's the US politicians perverting the system that are bad. (Again, completely aside: there are probably better systems than that of the US but that's irrelevant right now). The European _system_ is bad in that it isn't really representing anybody to begin with.
I never meant to sound like I was mounting an attack, but frankly, I'm tired of hearing everyone complain about my country, even as I watch their own do the same things that they deride us for. Either admit that we all have a lot of work to do, together, to bring about a better world, or shut up about it altogether.
You may be tired of hearing everyone complain about your country, but if everyone is complaining, might it not be that your country really _is_ wrong and that it might be time to rectify that situation?
What we seem at least to agree on completely is that it is in all of our own hands so the admission that we have a lot of work to do is easy for me to make. The shutting up and acting on it has however to start somewhere else than here because we're still working on the situation while you seem to be intent on keeping it as it is, warts and all.
Please specify which laundry you're referring to, because as I recall it, on all imporant recent cases you had your media do it for you, like everywhere else in the world. Nothing superiour about that in my book.
If you want to be morally superiour, then don't try the run the world according to your standards or claim to be better than the people you're saying you're 'helping' while they haven't asked for it. Help that is. Will save you a lot of anomisity to boot. And a lot of egg on your face too...
Slashdot Mirror
So many people, so many whishes.
I would love to be able to buy a phone without a camera, but with the longer battery life and the memorycard you want while having a high-definition screen and a workable keyboard, so that I can really use it as a poor-mans PC/terminal when on-the-road.
The Nokia 6820 goes a long way but the keyboard needs a bit of touching up still and the screen needs to become an OLED screen of resolution comparable to this Casio Screen. Oh, and Nokia, if you're listening: make the damn MMC-card hot-swapable and accessible from the outside!
I was expecting a one-line reply of the grand-parent poster along the lines of:
"Uh huh."
Now that Sounds like a Home entertainment system done right. As in: integrating all your communication and media needs in one platform.
If you're willing to go all out on Myth for your video/audio demands (think central encoding server with Raid and multiple encoder cards as back-end and multiple diskless Via mini-itx with h/w decoding, dvi-out, LCD-panel, DTS 5.1 as front-ends) then why not add a camera and a microphone: video-phone throughout the house!
Now for the integration with building infrastructure. HVAC/climate-control, security systems, etc. If that becomes easier and cheaper, you really get your 'house of the future'.
Your argument being that choosing the best from two evils is ok, especially since they should be so closely together in their politics that it really doesn't matter which of the two is elected anyway? And you dare call that system good or even democratic?
I hope you're a succesfull Troll and not representative of how informed US citizens think about the US presidential election system...
I'm the type of person that rather replies than mods down, but I admit that was I tempted there for a moment.
I'd go for answer number three, which consists of answer 1 plus answer 2....
Be carefull now. Some
To which Bush Jr. replied: "France? Has the Washington police department caught the man on the model airplane yet?"
Comparing the shift from CRT to LCD with the shift from LCD to OLED is nonsensical. CRT wasn't just an aged technology when LCD finally was easy enough to produce and reliable enough for greater use, it was positively ancient. It was time for something new. LCD was dramatically more different from CRT than LCD is from OLED in almost every aspect and so it had an easy 'in' in the market when it arrived.
Not so with OLED. OLED has many of the same characteristics of LCD, but it enhances on them. Not a radical change like LCD, but enough to make it very interesting as an evolutionary step up.
And therein lies the problem: LCD is barely out of its infancy and the new kid on the block is right on its heels. No time to recoup R&D or even just the cost of the production facilities!
I predict we will see lagging in the introduction of OLED. Perhaps not as bad as it would have been in a less competitive and global market than that of computer hardware today, but still.
If I'm correct, and in the coming years an even better new technique evolves, a higher evolutionary step on the ladder of display tech, then maybe LCD will be stretched to bridge the gap. If nothing new comes around in LCD-land, then OLED will certainly become big. Just not as fast as I hoped for when I first learned about it.
... Because of vested interests.
;D)
OLED holds many promises because it is, as the name indicates, a LED type of display. In other words, you don't block/filter an underlying lightsource like with LCD-type screens. Every pixel itself emits light. This makes for better image quality at higher resolution and less power consumption plus, as a bonus, no vulnerable, ill-distrubuted central light-source.
Once (if?) the optimal solution is found to creating the seperate Organic colors reliably (and currently the biggest problem: durably) OLED should overtake all other techniques. Especially since some production techniques currently being pioneered do not have an inherent limitation to the substrate size (read: Mega sized displayes at Giga resolutions, ultraflat, high light-output and low power...).
I say should because LCD is currently the entrenched technique and I don't think all investments have been recoverd yet. The question then becomes: is the best (cheapest to produce) OLED solution being brought forward by a current player with LCD 'capital' to defend or an outsider? If the latter, OLED has a fighting chance, if the former, we'll have to see if several producers have competing designs to make OLED still take off. A lot of money has gone into those factories, and even if they are relatively easily converted to OLED, most companies don't jump for joy at the prospect of destroying existing investments for a newer technology. (Or any new investments for that matter
Recouping costs may hold OLED back more than any technological hurdle, I'm sorry to say.
Although I have the mod points to fix the parent, I won't because the moderation was fine. Your post, however, deserver an "overrated". But because I'd like to think of myself as having standards (not to be confused with morals), I'll just reply:
;p
Bullshit! Firefox is faster than IE. If the grandparent is talking about load time: that point has been beaten to death by now. IE 'loads' faster because it doesn't. That has been done at boot time. Keep Firefox open at all times and then test speed differences.
Untill you get a clue: people with lesser standards, mod parent down!
Heresy! Burn him at the spindle!
In Jack Vance's "Eyes of the overworld", 'orbs' are used to change the users perception of reality into on of eternal paradise. Without the orbs one percieves the world as it really is, with the orbs everything seems to be pure bliss. In the story, some social adoptations are described to circumvent some of the physical problems associated with such an altered reality.
Basically you can see shades of "The Matrix" and of this new Vinge story. What struck me most about it was that the inhabittants of this virtual reality start to neglect the underlying reality because it doesn't matter if everything is shit, as long as it looks ok to them.
If you start thinking about the implications, considering natural human laziness, I'm starting to think this future might not be as bright as it first seems.
Published in 1966, although being just a short story written in a rather difficult style, I think the 'predictions' of Vance are more accurate than those of Vinge, or the Matrix for that matter...
I had no mod points to give so I can respond under my own name, but I second the AC's reaction that this is one of those memorable posts that you wish you could give a bonus on top of some mod-points. If this is your own writing, please keep it up, it makes up for all the trolls and blabbering idiots out there.
Thanks. Again.
Admonishing us for not using the preview button or a spell checker?! :D
:P
"Well. I guess I'll have to see your 'dupe on the same day' and I raise you... a glaring spelling mistake in a title."
At least the editors can edit their entries.
Don't worry about it, I'll go with Johanna Boogerd. Thanks for making life easy for me for these elections. (Thanks too to halo1.)
Thank you. I'll vote for her then. Now for the name of the 'right-wing' (I assume(d) it's a VVD rep) MEP. I'd like to let him/her know why I won't be voting for them.
;)
Silly this, doing this in english while we probably both are more proficient in Dutch...
Why do you bother posting a reply? If he isn't going to change the outcome, why would you spill your time on trying to convince him he's wrong in doing what he does?
Please crawl back under your stone, with the rest of the non-voters and don't come crying if the politicians do something you abhore, because you just gave up your right to complain.
Please please please do spill the beans. What were the names of these two politicians?
If the VVD member affirms his stance (and I will ask) I will never ever vote VVD again. That kind of 'achterkamertjespolitiek' was exactly what the late P. Fortuyn was up against. If he wasn't right about anything else, at least on this he was right on the money.
If you'll spill the name I'll vote for the D66 person that gave you a good reply and I'll send a message his/her way to express my feelings and why I voted for them. I agree with more D66 points anyway so it won't go 'against the grain' for my political 'color' anyway.
They'd been down that road already. Twice. I guess Saddam wanted a change of adversaries. Just like you tend to get bored with the characters in your favourite FPS game...
Go ahead. Laugh. It's not as if we give a damn any more about anything except perhaps a few soldiers lives. Oh wait. Politicians care about the oil, too!
('My' country, The Netherlands, unfortunatly has soldiers in Iraq. Now that they're there, politicians start yammering about the 'risks' these soldiers have to take to do their job. Puh lease! The ammounts of truly innocent Iraqi men, women and children dead already mean nothing to them. I hate this 'war' a lot.)
If you're confused now, don't be ashamed. It's intentionally made this complicated to evade or muddle up international discussions about our drugs policies... ;)
This message brought to you from the Marihuana capitol of the world.
Thank you!
;)
Here in the Netherlands, better known as Marihuana country, you can buy, smoke or otherwise consume grass as you like. Growing it, however, is still prohibited and prosecuted.
Lately there has been an upsurge in the active search for growers because companies are starting to excert pressure on politicians to protect their bottom line (sound familiar?). Mainly electricity companies and home-renting companies complain because of tapped electricity and damage to houses.
Only recently the idea of scanning houses for IR came up and over here that didn't seem to provoke a privacy discussion which I think is appaling. Anyway, now that you've given me this idea I'll try that, since fighting the searches themselves on the legalese is difficult.
Furthermore, in some other child-posts, there are some other very neat ideas for covering up ones growing 'plant'. People tap electricity to prevent the power company from selling you out to the cops if you suddenly use a lot more power/water.
Just install a fishtank, put some exotic looking but cold-water fish in them and claim you're heating it! Put a hot-water solar collector on the roof, problem of radiation cover solved...
Maybe now I too will start to grow some, for my personal consumption of course...
Right, blame the US because your representatives screwed you over. That's is the funnies thing I've heard in a long, long time. Like the EU doesn't have the power to stick it to the US if it feels so inclined. Just look at US tarrifs on steel imports. The EU didn't like it and threated to put tarrifs in place on US agricultural exports that would hit Bush where it hurts (which agricultural exporters in South who are Bush supports) and when push came to shove he backed down.
This is so misguided that I don't know where to start. I'm not blaming the US for our representatives 'screwing us over'. The US is trying to do what is best for the US and the fact the the 'European parliament' decided to roll over for it has everything to do with the fact that the countries that make up 'Europe' are far too dependant on the US for far too many things.
Thankfully you yourself give the perfect example. The steel tarrifs. The tarrifs that were illegal to begin with but where the European union decided to take the high road and go to court over it instead of just retaliating immediatly. The tarrifs that hit European bussinesses where it hurts so your petty and unprofitable steel industry had the time to restructure instead of die out altogether from fierce free-market competition that Mr. Bush so vehemently defends (lipservice).
Retribution that was held back untill legal proceedings through the WTO were over, including all possible appeals. All of which were _lost_ by the US governement. And then, _only_ then the EU threatened sanctions and decided to threaten in a way that it knew Mr. Bush couldn't ignore: in his electoral chances.
So your precious Mr. Bush, derided almost all over the world, 'backed down' because he knows only one thing: polls. And that is why the US political system, in all its inherent beauty, is being slaughtered at the moment. By greedy, egotistical, megalomaniac politicians that think they know better than anyone anywhere.
It was an instance where the 'European politicians' actually achieved something. And even that was only because it wasn't part of the 'political process' but of a determined committee that was being lobbied US-style by our steel producers and backed by Japan, Australia and others. And you know what? It was done in this way because we are so bloody dependant that if we had done it Bush-style, retaliating on the spot, it had hurt us even more.
So before you start bashing at Europe, take a good look at your home situation. A Dutch proverb says: try not to remove the splinter from anothers eye before removing the log from ones own. In this case, if _everyone_ is saying that the US is evil, might it not be time to reconsider if they might, even in the slightest way, be right?
As I've stated in another reply, we still have to get our opportunity to correct matters through a ballot box on the patent issue. Untill then all bets are off. But be sure to understand that we brought nothing upon ourselves. 'European politicians' who are not brought it upon us because of US preasure.
EXACTLY! The US press likes nothing more than show the rest of the world how evil the US is. Continually and at loud volume. And then Hollywood goes and portays a completely fictitious culture to boot. The US is *NOT* what you see on in the media and the movies.
ROFLMAO!!! Now that is rich!
So your perfect little 'independant' media are what keep the US honest and accountable and 'our' silly and scared news outlets only let out what the 'European' politicians want to tell us...
It'll be a sad day when European media start reporting the way the US media do. Not because the US media paint such a rotten picture of the US (European media and media elsewhere in the world paint a far worse picture of the US, don't worry about that) but because that would mean there would be no really independant and critical mainstream media left in Europe.
I'll give you the fact that media are needed to keep politicians in check, but the fact that you refer to US media as the shining light and example for their European counterparts is utterly ridiculous.
Even though the political process of 'Europe' is murky, un-democratic and silly, the politicians don't try to abuse the system and hide the issues like the US congress so often does with 'rider bills'. The problem is that the 'honesty' of European politicians merely is lip-service to make it look like they are acting democratic. The process itself resembles nothing like a democratic body.
My impression of your system has nothing to do with Hollywood though, and everything with the media-outlets you yourself praise. That and the more independant outlook of BBC world and our Dutch newschannels and the internet. Don't assume every-one everywhere simply consumes what Hollywood produces.
And for the fact that Europe has every fault the US does: despite what your media tell you, there is no 'Europe' and it therefore cannot have the same flaws. The parts that make up 'Europe' have their own flaws that'll do nicely for us, we have no need for 'your' flaws.
Actually, I'll be campaigning to re-elect him. Believe it or not, more than half of us like President Bush right now, and I happened to be in that majority.
Now is your time to shut up then. Even though you _know_ he's part of the problem you will not excercise your opportunity to get rid of him. We have that part still ahead of us. (Completely aside: a majority of US citizens actually doesn't 'like' Bush, it's just that his opponents are split. Talk about insight in your own politics.)
Then why do so many Europeans get off complaining about "ignorant Americans"? I read the news and follow my country's political machinations. When your countrymen fail to do the same, somehow it's my fault as a US citizen?
Because most are. And as I said in my grand-parent post, so are most Europeans but they _still_ know more about your political system than US citizens do on average. (note: I'm talking about the system, as I pointed out in grand-parent, US citizens are more likely to know the people in the system.) 'We' Europeans don't get our own political system because by all definitions it isn't. It is a strange construction of something but it sure as hell isn't anything like a real political system. It is mostly like a thoughtlessly slapped on 'extraneus bit' to 'unite' all the very seperate European countries. In all honesty, the basic democratic system the US has, including it's bill of rights, isn't at all bad. It sure as hell is better than the European 'equivalent'. It's the US politicians perverting the system that are bad. (Again, completely aside: there are probably better systems than that of the US but that's irrelevant right now). The European _system_ is bad in that it isn't really representing anybody to begin with.
I never meant to sound like I was mounting an attack, but frankly, I'm tired of hearing everyone complain about my country, even as I watch their own do the same things that they deride us for. Either admit that we all have a lot of work to do, together, to bring about a better world, or shut up about it altogether.
You may be tired of hearing everyone complain about your country, but if everyone is complaining, might it not be that your country really _is_ wrong and that it might be time to rectify that situation?
What we seem at least to agree on completely is that it is in all of our own hands so the admission that we have a lot of work to do is easy for me to make. The shutting up and acting on it has however to start somewhere else than here because we're still working on the situation while you seem to be intent on keeping it as it is, warts and all.
Please specify which laundry you're referring to, because as I recall it, on all imporant recent cases you had your media do it for you, like everywhere else in the world. Nothing superiour about that in my book.
If you want to be morally superiour, then don't try the run the world according to your standards or claim to be better than the people you're saying you're 'helping' while they haven't asked for it. Help that is. Will save you a lot of anomisity to boot. And a lot of egg on your face too...