That survey only shows what people are thinking of Linux now. Suppose that before the campaign, only 5% were thinking of using linux and 90% were dead-set against it? Then the campaign would be backfiring.
Without any data points on what people thought before, or what a control group of people who haven't been exposed to the campaign think, we can't tell how effective or inneffective "Get the Facts" has been.
-Drachasor
That poster's comment was on why it will fail because it is *merely* an internet appliance.
If you don't have the capability to do anything more than what the box allows, then it loses out on a ton of usefulness. Poor individuals that can't afford a good computer, but have the brains to excell if given the tools are treated very poorly by this.
They should allow custom software to be installed, though perhaps make it mildly difficult to enable this feature.
They shouldn't be thinking of this as an internet appliance, but more like a mixture of that and a Commodore 64 for developing countries.
-Drachasor
Ugh....give me a day or so to compose my overall reply.
As far as my comments on health care are concerned though, the primary expense is from the man-hour concentration. Health Care requires qualified workers that must devote a lot of time and money for the right education. This means they must be paid pretty well.
Now, the more industrialized and efficient a nation becomes, the less man-hours are needed for goods. This makes the price of goods go down. Most things go down in this way. Health Care, on the other hand, has gone up because it requires even more education and training and the man-hours have not gone down at all. So, to pay for a good you pay for the material cost and the man-hour cost. For most goods this goes down, but for health care this goes up as wealth goes up, because each person involved in the healthcare system needs to be paid and all of their wages are going up.
Health Care and Education haven't been industrialized so their cost has shot up a lot because of this. It is a little counter-intuitive, but it is the primary cause of the increased price of both. There are other things that have increased cost, but generally they account for a relatively small amount of the increase.
Basically it is an issue of this man-hour gap, and this can only be fixed by technological advances. I can only see this happening in the fields of AI and robotics, primarily, along with improved preventative care for Healthcare.
-Drachasor
PS. Need to be depressed about the future of America now. I'll get back to other various topics you commented on (and other commented on) later.
The current Libertarian candidate is against market bidding on pollution. I was criticizing him.
-Drachasor
PS. I'll respond to your reply and others more later, I am very busy for the next 7-8 hours because of Election day and my job. Advanced apologies for the delay.
I know Libertarianism is pretty popular on Slashdot, but there are fairly extreme idealists. These means there are numerous problems with Libertarian positions.
He has these extremely naive and idealistic idea that all problems facing the country are because of "excess regulation."
Libertarians are traditionally against almost all taxes except those needed for "minimum" regulation and the military. However, this also ignores the fact that some things you simply need taxes to finance.
Problems with healthcare? Excess regulation! The fact that preventative medicine costs the consumer a lot less and is given less frequently encourages companies to go with heavy medication has no effect. The fact that the reason why medicine (and education for that matter) cost so much is largely how man-hour intensive these occupations are (this gap compared to regular industry has only been widening) apparently doesn't register either. Decreased regulation won't fix the core problems, whereas increased government funding into robots, AI, research, and even certain kinds of healthcare (or encouragement of preventative medicine) could greatly help. Of course, Libertarians are ostensibly against that.
The wealth gap? Libertarianism has no problem with it; let it grow as much as you want. Of course, they ignore the massive numbers of poor that couldn't afford education or healthcare; and are free to be exploited by companies thanks to lowered regulations. Public Charities are nice and do good, but they cannot compare to the scope and global ability of a government program.
Depressions and Recessions? A government that is only minimal won't have the funding to spur the economy back to its feet. Instead it will sit impotently as the economy suffers.
The environment? Well, Libertarians don't like to talk about that, because they encourage deregulation to such a great extent. Get rid of smart systems of bidding on polution credits that use a market system to control the pollution. Instead allow people to sue when their property is damaged by pollution. The fact that this is hard to tell or that the company might not exist anymore plays no role in this. Forget National Parks, let private ownership control all lands, and then when someone needs more money those lands will be destroyed. Natural Preserves are simply far, far easier to destroy than preserve. An heir can easily decided to get rid of it without the public's consent (and preservation is a public boon), whereas the government cannot easily choose to do this. Irrelevent points to the Libertarian, whose faith in the free market overshadows all evidence of limitations.
Education? Forget government funded and guaranteed education for every citizen. Instead money will have to come out the pocket of the parents, and too bad for them if they can't afford to educate their kids. This will breed a cycle of poverty that is extremely difficult to get out of. It penalizes quite unduly people with a lot of natural talent born in a poor position. It greatly benefits those of lesser ability born to those who have wealth.
General Scientific research? That simply isn't financed well at all by private industry. We probably would have never visited the moon or even have a quarter the number of space explorations if we had been going the Libertarian route. A few wealthy and a few non-wealthy contributors is all, and science would greatly suffer. This results in a corresponding suffering in the future when those advances are needed. Oh, and forget the massive numbers of scientists we have trying to figure out how the world works and is; without a lot of government funding there simply wouldn't be a market for so many.
In contrast, a number of their social values are good, generally speaking, but still a bit lacking. Legalizing Drugs is good, but one should then tax them up to the point that they are still preferable to black market goods, but still an "attractive" choice. Many drugs are so addictive they great
Ahh, you are a fool. If two parties do not share the same core goals then you cannot have any sort of productive intercourse.
You don't understand what negotiations are about at all. You don't need to have the same core goals, you don't even need to have completely non-conflicting goals. You just need to have goals that don't entirely conflict with each other and the ability to compromise. The compromising part can easily come through political pressure.
All settlements follow this premise, and many do not follow the premise you propose. The negotiations at the end of WWI, the negotiations between owners and labor unions, and many, many others.
I would point out (again I think) that both Kerry and Bush have the ostensible plan of talking. Kerry's plan just results in actual talking whereas Bush's plan results in basically no dialogue. One is clearly better than the other.
-Drachasor
I seee, and you think Bush is better for the economy because he has no plan for the deficit? Indeed, his platform doesn't even acknowledge the national debt or deficit is an issue that must be addressed.
Kerry, on the other hand, has a long record of fiscal responsibility in the Senate (he has broken with his party to support it). His platform also is more fiscally sound, as even the Economist says.
Perhaps one of the most reasonable criteria for the beginning of truly human life is when the brain really starts working. This is sometime after 3 months. Before that you only have insignificant brain waves that don't involve any real cognitive activity.
Of course, one should still allow later abortions in certain circumstances (e.g. the mother is at risk).
Lastly, one needs to allow anyone to get an abortion without the need to inform anyone else. This makes sure that there is plenty of time and plenty of access to clinics without the fear of what others might think.
Bah, you don't really know what you are talking about.
If France was against everything going on in Iraq then there would no sanctions. Apparently you aren't that familiar with the U.N. France would have been able to Veto any sanctions that were proposed; they did not, nor did they have an interest in removing sanctions in Iraq.
You sound like you are reading from an Econ 101 textbook. The US doesn't care one red cent were the bulk of our imports come from. Cheap plastic bits cane from any country that can produce them. There is nothing that we import from any country - other than namesake products (aka "French wine", "dutch flowers", etc) that we couldn't just as easily import from anywhere else.
Your understanding of my point is incrediably flawed here. Connectedness in economies means that war is far, far less likely. Why? Because if you go to war all of those trades and every other economic benefit is gone. These things are no easily replaceable; it will cost quite a bit of money now that the markets you have access to are fewer in number. This damages the economy in a warring nation. In highly connected economies it can damage the nation so much that war would simply not be profitable.
The US has the economic resources and natural assets to cut itself off from the world, and become self-sufficent. That is the road we are heading, and rightly so.
The idea that America somehow has the resources to cut itself off from the rest of the world is pure fantasy. We are getting less and less metals from within the U.S., we require Oil from outside the U.S. and will never be self-sufficient here. We import more and more goods over time. We are not heading into the direction of economic isolationism, nor would we want to. You are simply deluding yourself thinking that economies are going to become less integrated. In the past 200, 100, 50, and 10 years economies have been becoming more and more integrated, and there is no sign that will change.
There is no settlement that North Korea will honor. They only care about securing the future of the rulers of North Korea. Period. The people of North Korea have been starving to death for 30 years. What makes anyone think that's going to change? Kerry's approach is exactly that of Clinton - negogiate with North Korea in order to get them to stop their nuclear program. Give them the smallest concessions available. That is the exact same thing Clinton did. And now North Korea is nuclear. Kerry advocates the same plan in Iran. Iran claims to be seeking nuclear technology for power plants, even though they sit on enough easily available petrol to fuel their nation for 200 years. Kerry said during the debates that we should assist their peaceful nuclear development. Same thing that North Korea claimed in the 90's. The same result with be proven. A nuclear Iran.
If you know someone will not honor agreements without additional force to honor them, then you will negotiate agreements so that you can be sure they are honoring them.
And Bush's "develop new nuclear weapons while telling other countries they can't have them" is a plan that will never be convincing. Such hypocrisy encourages the development of nuclear weapons by other nations.
We don't have the troops to go into North Korea, we don't have the troops to go into Iran. If you can't take it over, and we can't, then talk and peaceful negotiations are the only ways to handle the problem. So even if you wanted to have a military solution, the fact is that an acceptable one doesn't exist (and nuking them into the stone age is not an acceptable solution).
So what does Bush do? He doesn't talk to anyone, he doesn't lead the world. He doesn't have any kind of talk with North Korea, because he is stupid and stubborn. He lets Germany and other nations lead the talks in Iran.
Wether or not you like it, the only thing that can be done is to negotiate. One can simply be more careful and watchful of how negotiations
North Korea is not Europe. The Kyoto Treaty and ICC were agreements that the first world needed to work together on and then work with the third world on. Instead, we didn't. Comparing this to North Korea is ridiculous.
And Bush's solution is to "talk" to, just 6-way talks that actually aren't happening. Everyone in the region is saying there need to be bilateral talks to get things going, but Bush is not doing it. Kerry's position is that bilateral talks and eventual 6-way talks are better than no talks.
There are ways to get agreements to work out and enforce things. A primary concern to North Korea now is a lack of food and other supplies. However, it will just continue to work on Nuclear Weapons if nothing is done. Bush is advocating nothing. Believe it or not, Kerry knows you can learn from mistakes and not make them again the next time. Clinton did make a mistake, but that is in regards to the agreement reached and how it would be monitored, not in regards to talking.
And the corruption in the Oil for Food programs is largely from private companies in various countries, the governments and people are not corrupt. There is no evidence that corruption was changing policy at all (and such corruptions can be fixed when identified).
The idea of the U.S. becoming a self-sustaining economy is ludicrous. The world isn't like that anymore. Economies are becoming more and more integrated and this is a good thing. The more intergrated the world economies are, the less war there will be; it will simply cost far, far too much in lost trade to go to war.
-Drachasor
Al Qaeda is still quite capable of doing things. Zaqawi (sp?) in Iraq has declared affiliation with Al Qaeda now, and clearly he is doing quite a lot. Oh, and in case you want to quote Bush's figure on how many Al Qaeda leaders he has put away, the 75% figure only applies to leaders than existed at the time of 9/11; they have a lot more now.
What Bush has done is anger the Arab world even more so that the recruitment for future terrorists is up by a great deal. He's made more terrorists than he has stopped.
Al Qaeda now has more people and is a much more hydra-like organization now. It will be very hard to eliminate in the future.
-Drachasor
But if you bother to look at what Zogby has said in the past, then you'll find he has thought Bush would win.
On the other hand, with an election so close Kerry has numerous factors in his favor.
1. Undecided voters break for the challenger almost every time.
2. Polling doesn't reach people with cell phones and college students very well (overall heavy Kerry supporters).
3. Bush's approval rating is very, very low. In the last 50 or so years no President has won a re-election campaign without at least a 55% approval rating.
Basically you have a preoponderance of evidence supporting a Kerry win, and nothing that really supports a Bush win. While Bush might still win, there is almost no way Bush can manage a decisive win, whereas it is possible that Kerry will do so.
In other words, Kerry has a strong advantage.
-Drachasor
The thing about the International Court and the Kyoto Treaty is you don't walk away from such things. If there are flaws (and there were) then you sit down with the other nations and work out the problems. That's what diplomacy and international relations are all about.
By walking away without any attempt to work with other nations, it is another example of Bush's belligerant attitude towards the rest of the world. What a lot of Americans don't seem to realize is that Europe is our friend and ally. We haven't been treating them as a very good friend, however.
-Drachasor
Care to indicate a source for this information?
My own searches on the net show nearly identical stories last year (as we had here), though they said DNA was being tested. I was unable to find results on those tests.
It was quite curious.
-Drachasor
Slashdot Mirror
That survey only shows what people are thinking of Linux now. Suppose that before the campaign, only 5% were thinking of using linux and 90% were dead-set against it? Then the campaign would be backfiring. Without any data points on what people thought before, or what a control group of people who haven't been exposed to the campaign think, we can't tell how effective or inneffective "Get the Facts" has been. -Drachasor
That poster's comment was on why it will fail because it is *merely* an internet appliance. If you don't have the capability to do anything more than what the box allows, then it loses out on a ton of usefulness. Poor individuals that can't afford a good computer, but have the brains to excell if given the tools are treated very poorly by this. They should allow custom software to be installed, though perhaps make it mildly difficult to enable this feature. They shouldn't be thinking of this as an internet appliance, but more like a mixture of that and a Commodore 64 for developing countries. -Drachasor
Ugh....give me a day or so to compose my overall reply. As far as my comments on health care are concerned though, the primary expense is from the man-hour concentration. Health Care requires qualified workers that must devote a lot of time and money for the right education. This means they must be paid pretty well. Now, the more industrialized and efficient a nation becomes, the less man-hours are needed for goods. This makes the price of goods go down. Most things go down in this way. Health Care, on the other hand, has gone up because it requires even more education and training and the man-hours have not gone down at all. So, to pay for a good you pay for the material cost and the man-hour cost. For most goods this goes down, but for health care this goes up as wealth goes up, because each person involved in the healthcare system needs to be paid and all of their wages are going up. Health Care and Education haven't been industrialized so their cost has shot up a lot because of this. It is a little counter-intuitive, but it is the primary cause of the increased price of both. There are other things that have increased cost, but generally they account for a relatively small amount of the increase. Basically it is an issue of this man-hour gap, and this can only be fixed by technological advances. I can only see this happening in the fields of AI and robotics, primarily, along with improved preventative care for Healthcare. -Drachasor PS. Need to be depressed about the future of America now. I'll get back to other various topics you commented on (and other commented on) later.
My apologies again. I don't post here a lot and forgot to hit text format for that post.
-Drachasor
The current Libertarian candidate is against market bidding on pollution. I was criticizing him. -Drachasor PS. I'll respond to your reply and others more later, I am very busy for the next 7-8 hours because of Election day and my job. Advanced apologies for the delay.
I know Libertarianism is pretty popular on Slashdot, but there are fairly extreme idealists. These means there are numerous problems with Libertarian positions.
He has these extremely naive and idealistic idea that all problems facing the country are because of "excess regulation."
Libertarians are traditionally against almost all taxes except those needed for "minimum" regulation and the military. However, this also ignores the fact that some things you simply need taxes to finance.
Problems with healthcare? Excess regulation! The fact that preventative medicine costs the consumer a lot less and is given less frequently encourages companies to go with heavy medication has no effect. The fact that the reason why medicine (and education for that matter) cost so much is largely how man-hour intensive these occupations are (this gap compared to regular industry has only been widening) apparently doesn't register either. Decreased regulation won't fix the core problems, whereas increased government funding into robots, AI, research, and even certain kinds of healthcare (or encouragement of preventative medicine) could greatly help. Of course, Libertarians are ostensibly against that.
The wealth gap? Libertarianism has no problem with it; let it grow as much as you want. Of course, they ignore the massive numbers of poor that couldn't afford education or healthcare; and are free to be exploited by companies thanks to lowered regulations. Public Charities are nice and do good, but they cannot compare to the scope and global ability of a government program.
Depressions and Recessions? A government that is only minimal won't have the funding to spur the economy back to its feet. Instead it will sit impotently as the economy suffers.
The environment? Well, Libertarians don't like to talk about that, because they encourage deregulation to such a great extent. Get rid of smart systems of bidding on polution credits that use a market system to control the pollution. Instead allow people to sue when their property is damaged by pollution. The fact that this is hard to tell or that the company might not exist anymore plays no role in this. Forget National Parks, let private ownership control all lands, and then when someone needs more money those lands will be destroyed. Natural Preserves are simply far, far easier to destroy than preserve. An heir can easily decided to get rid of it without the public's consent (and preservation is a public boon), whereas the government cannot easily choose to do this. Irrelevent points to the Libertarian, whose faith in the free market overshadows all evidence of limitations.
Education? Forget government funded and guaranteed education for every citizen. Instead money will have to come out the pocket of the parents, and too bad for them if they can't afford to educate their kids. This will breed a cycle of poverty that is extremely difficult to get out of. It penalizes quite unduly people with a lot of natural talent born in a poor position. It greatly benefits those of lesser ability born to those who have wealth.
General Scientific research? That simply isn't financed well at all by private industry. We probably would have never visited the moon or even have a quarter the number of space explorations if we had been going the Libertarian route. A few wealthy and a few non-wealthy contributors is all, and science would greatly suffer. This results in a corresponding suffering in the future when those advances are needed. Oh, and forget the massive numbers of scientists we have trying to figure out how the world works and is; without a lot of government funding there simply wouldn't be a market for so many.
In contrast, a number of their social values are good, generally speaking, but still a bit lacking. Legalizing Drugs is good, but one should then tax them up to the point that they are still preferable to black market goods, but still an "attractive" choice. Many drugs are so addictive they great
Ahh, you are a fool. If two parties do not share the same core goals then you cannot have any sort of productive intercourse.
You don't understand what negotiations are about at all. You don't need to have the same core goals, you don't even need to have completely non-conflicting goals. You just need to have goals that don't entirely conflict with each other and the ability to compromise. The compromising part can easily come through political pressure. All settlements follow this premise, and many do not follow the premise you propose. The negotiations at the end of WWI, the negotiations between owners and labor unions, and many, many others. I would point out (again I think) that both Kerry and Bush have the ostensible plan of talking. Kerry's plan just results in actual talking whereas Bush's plan results in basically no dialogue. One is clearly better than the other. -DrachasorKerry has a history of fiscal responsibility. He has throughout his Senate career.
So you have one man with a history of responsibility, and another man that can't veto anything he sees and advocates more and more spending.
I think it is pretty clear which one you should favor.
-Drachasor
I seee, and you think Bush is better for the economy because he has no plan for the deficit? Indeed, his platform doesn't even acknowledge the national debt or deficit is an issue that must be addressed.
Kerry, on the other hand, has a long record of fiscal responsibility in the Senate (he has broken with his party to support it). His platform also is more fiscally sound, as even the Economist says.
-Drachasor
Perhaps one of the most reasonable criteria for the beginning of truly human life is when the brain really starts working. This is sometime after 3 months. Before that you only have insignificant brain waves that don't involve any real cognitive activity.
Of course, one should still allow later abortions in certain circumstances (e.g. the mother is at risk).
Lastly, one needs to allow anyone to get an abortion without the need to inform anyone else. This makes sure that there is plenty of time and plenty of access to clinics without the fear of what others might think.
-Drachasor
Negotiating in North Korea on the premise that they want what the US wants is absurd.
Thinking that you can't have negotiations unless both groups want the same things is what is really absurd.
-Drachasor
Bah, you don't really know what you are talking about.
If France was against everything going on in Iraq then there would no sanctions. Apparently you aren't that familiar with the U.N. France would have been able to Veto any sanctions that were proposed; they did not, nor did they have an interest in removing sanctions in Iraq.
You sound like you are reading from an Econ 101 textbook. The US doesn't care one red cent were the bulk of our imports come from. Cheap plastic bits cane from any country that can produce them. There is nothing that we import from any country - other than namesake products (aka "French wine", "dutch flowers", etc) that we couldn't just as easily import from anywhere else.
Your understanding of my point is incrediably flawed here. Connectedness in economies means that war is far, far less likely. Why? Because if you go to war all of those trades and every other economic benefit is gone. These things are no easily replaceable; it will cost quite a bit of money now that the markets you have access to are fewer in number. This damages the economy in a warring nation. In highly connected economies it can damage the nation so much that war would simply not be profitable.
The US has the economic resources and natural assets to cut itself off from the world, and become self-sufficent. That is the road we are heading, and rightly so.
The idea that America somehow has the resources to cut itself off from the rest of the world is pure fantasy. We are getting less and less metals from within the U.S., we require Oil from outside the U.S. and will never be self-sufficient here. We import more and more goods over time. We are not heading into the direction of economic isolationism, nor would we want to. You are simply deluding yourself thinking that economies are going to become less integrated. In the past 200, 100, 50, and 10 years economies have been becoming more and more integrated, and there is no sign that will change.
There is no settlement that North Korea will honor. They only care about securing the future of the rulers of North Korea. Period. The people of North Korea have been starving to death for 30 years. What makes anyone think that's going to change? Kerry's approach is exactly that of Clinton - negogiate with North Korea in order to get them to stop their nuclear program. Give them the smallest concessions available. That is the exact same thing Clinton did. And now North Korea is nuclear. Kerry advocates the same plan in Iran. Iran claims to be seeking nuclear technology for power plants, even though they sit on enough easily available petrol to fuel their nation for 200 years. Kerry said during the debates that we should assist their peaceful nuclear development. Same thing that North Korea claimed in the 90's. The same result with be proven. A nuclear Iran.
If you know someone will not honor agreements without additional force to honor them, then you will negotiate agreements so that you can be sure they are honoring them.
And Bush's "develop new nuclear weapons while telling other countries they can't have them" is a plan that will never be convincing. Such hypocrisy encourages the development of nuclear weapons by other nations.
We don't have the troops to go into North Korea, we don't have the troops to go into Iran. If you can't take it over, and we can't, then talk and peaceful negotiations are the only ways to handle the problem. So even if you wanted to have a military solution, the fact is that an acceptable one doesn't exist (and nuking them into the stone age is not an acceptable solution).
So what does Bush do? He doesn't talk to anyone, he doesn't lead the world. He doesn't have any kind of talk with North Korea, because he is stupid and stubborn. He lets Germany and other nations lead the talks in Iran.
Wether or not you like it, the only thing that can be done is to negotiate. One can simply be more careful and watchful of how negotiations
North Korea is not Europe. The Kyoto Treaty and ICC were agreements that the first world needed to work together on and then work with the third world on. Instead, we didn't. Comparing this to North Korea is ridiculous. And Bush's solution is to "talk" to, just 6-way talks that actually aren't happening. Everyone in the region is saying there need to be bilateral talks to get things going, but Bush is not doing it. Kerry's position is that bilateral talks and eventual 6-way talks are better than no talks. There are ways to get agreements to work out and enforce things. A primary concern to North Korea now is a lack of food and other supplies. However, it will just continue to work on Nuclear Weapons if nothing is done. Bush is advocating nothing. Believe it or not, Kerry knows you can learn from mistakes and not make them again the next time. Clinton did make a mistake, but that is in regards to the agreement reached and how it would be monitored, not in regards to talking. And the corruption in the Oil for Food programs is largely from private companies in various countries, the governments and people are not corrupt. There is no evidence that corruption was changing policy at all (and such corruptions can be fixed when identified). The idea of the U.S. becoming a self-sustaining economy is ludicrous. The world isn't like that anymore. Economies are becoming more and more integrated and this is a good thing. The more intergrated the world economies are, the less war there will be; it will simply cost far, far too much in lost trade to go to war. -Drachasor
Al Qaeda is still quite capable of doing things. Zaqawi (sp?) in Iraq has declared affiliation with Al Qaeda now, and clearly he is doing quite a lot. Oh, and in case you want to quote Bush's figure on how many Al Qaeda leaders he has put away, the 75% figure only applies to leaders than existed at the time of 9/11; they have a lot more now. What Bush has done is anger the Arab world even more so that the recruitment for future terrorists is up by a great deal. He's made more terrorists than he has stopped. Al Qaeda now has more people and is a much more hydra-like organization now. It will be very hard to eliminate in the future. -Drachasor
But if you bother to look at what Zogby has said in the past, then you'll find he has thought Bush would win. On the other hand, with an election so close Kerry has numerous factors in his favor. 1. Undecided voters break for the challenger almost every time. 2. Polling doesn't reach people with cell phones and college students very well (overall heavy Kerry supporters). 3. Bush's approval rating is very, very low. In the last 50 or so years no President has won a re-election campaign without at least a 55% approval rating. Basically you have a preoponderance of evidence supporting a Kerry win, and nothing that really supports a Bush win. While Bush might still win, there is almost no way Bush can manage a decisive win, whereas it is possible that Kerry will do so. In other words, Kerry has a strong advantage. -Drachasor
The thing about the International Court and the Kyoto Treaty is you don't walk away from such things. If there are flaws (and there were) then you sit down with the other nations and work out the problems. That's what diplomacy and international relations are all about. By walking away without any attempt to work with other nations, it is another example of Bush's belligerant attitude towards the rest of the world. What a lot of Americans don't seem to realize is that Europe is our friend and ally. We haven't been treating them as a very good friend, however. -Drachasor
Care to indicate a source for this information? My own searches on the net show nearly identical stories last year (as we had here), though they said DNA was being tested. I was unable to find results on those tests. It was quite curious. -Drachasor