I suggest you follow Canadian Politics a bit. Harper is doing his best at a George W. Bush impression, though I have to give him at least some Kudos for being a bit more sneaky about it than his idol.
Having said this, the current opposition doesn't really exist either, I wish the Liberals would ship Dion off to somewhere in Northern Quebec where he can talk to some Polar Bears and maybe postur a bit.
The problem is that they are allegedly encouraging "exclusives" on one format or another, i.e. you want a particular movie, you can only buy the HD-DVD version. This means consumers have less choice, not more.
And who claims to have more exclusives? Ah yes, Blu-Ray does.
Both sides are "guilty" to some degree in it, but I think it still stings that Paramount seems to have looked at the business side of things and decided that HD DVD is the way to go, not Blu-Ray.
Why Bay gets so rallied up over it I don't quite get either, what does he care? It's not like either format has even sold a million on any title, or even combined. It's a nieche product and HD DVD has some business advantages that all the hot air that Sony and the Blu-Ray alliance are blowing won't make to go away.
Well no kidding they both use the same video codec! Hence, as soon as you mute your TV, there is no difference. Was it so hard to understand that I was specifically referring to what you were talking about? What did you think I meant? Not to be too adversarial, but you don't need to call bullshit without at least looking into the matter. I realize the quality parity FUD has been very strong, and I understand why you'd think I'm wrong, but HD users and Bluray users aren't enemies.
With your tone and aggressiveness you could have fooled me. Which ironically enough seems to mainly be spouted from the Blu-Ray Fanbois who seem to see the second coming of $deity in the Blu-Ray disc.
The sound quality of a bluray disc is actually extremely high when compared to the HD DVD. They absolutely are not constrained to the same audio quality. VC-1 is a video codec.
Yes, and Dolby TrueHD is an audio codec. Which, btw, is Mandatory for HD DVD, on Blu-Ray it is not.
All HD DVD players are required to be able to decode Dolby TrueHD to two channels, however all current players handle 5.1 decoding.
HD DVD is just a medium... that happens to be too small for both the video and the dozen gigabytes of audio data included on bluray.
Sure, if you use MPEG2 for video and LinearPCM for Audio. If you're smart(er) you use a more efficent means of compression.
The HD DVD has barely enough space for 24-bit/192 kHz for two channels. That's the maximum audio standard for that format. You can't do better than stereo if you want the kind of audio quality that matches the 1080p display . The Bluray can support that audio quality for six channels. That's a big ole difference.
Gee, did you tell Dolby that when they developed the TrueHD standard that they basically couldn't do that?
Not to be too harsh on HD DVD... but this is the simple truth.
In Blu-Ray world maybe. Not to be too harsh on Blu-Ray and it's fanbois, but this is something that is a solution that is looking for a problem.
IF you wanted to backup your harddrive, the HD DVD is more cost effective today.
If there would be any burners that's true, but so far I haven't seen any.
But Sony swung the 1080p dick around for a reason. Sure, most folks won't have the equipment to see that video quality, but these huge files are going to crowd everything else off the disc, and the HD camp pushed out too much video to the exclusion of more balance in quality.
Keep dreaming.
And that brings me to the most important point. Any 200 dollar audio system can easily show the difference between the formats. This isn't pushing technology to its limits like 1080p 60hz. This is Walmart level.
Which $200 system has an HDMI 1.3a connector? Please, give link, want to order.
Blu-Ray has Pirates 3, Spiderman 3, Harry Potter, 300, Ratatouille, Simpsons, The Bourne Ultimatum, All 4 Die Hard movies, Knocked Up, Oceans 13, Fantastic Four 2, Surf's Up (never underestimate DVD sales on a kid's movie like this), Rush Hour 3, etc.
Harry Potter --> Warner Brothers, so it will be on HD DVD as well, and in the past the HD DVD releases had more features than the Blu-Ray releases, Video was the same as Warner does only one encode.
300 --> Warner, on HD DVD as well, and again with more features than the Blu-Ray version.
The Bourne Ultimatum --> Universal Studios, definitely not going to be on Blu-Ray anytime soon.
Knocked Up --> Universal Studios again, so no Blu-Ray for you!
Oceans 13 --> Warner Brothers, so it will be dual format again.
Something about actually having enough space to store the audio without lossy compression.
Oh, lossless compression in Dolby TrueHD is not good enough for you? You're one of those people, I assume, who stores his CDs in WAV format too, right?
Consumers have spoken and they prefer Blu-Ray by a 2-to-1 margin.
And who are these consumers? Essentially PS3 owner who don't have any games.
Sony should pray that their fanbois continue to buy the PS3 and hope that no third party studio releases games that people actually want to play, the moment that happens the market for the Blu-Ray discs will fall away.
I have to ask myself, what's the motive a studio would have with going toward HD DVD technology vs. Blu-Ray?
How about the fact that there is only ONE HD DVD standard that tells the studio exactly what to expect in a player and build their content for that, while Blu-Ray ends up (by my last count) have four different "revisions" for players (so far), all with different capabilities. Up to this day NONE of the currently available Blu-Ray players actually has the ability to play PiP. Sure, the PS3 could if the software would be there, but that's a special case.
Blu-Ray still has really significant exclusives in Fox, Disney, and Sony (Star Wars/Pixar/Spider Man!).
Lucas holds the rights to Star Wars, not Fox. Yes, they ARE the studio through which he releases it, but it is HIS call when this will happen and on what format (much like Spielberg).
You should never be able to pay a customer to specifically exclude a competitor.
You ARE aware that pretty much all consumer good companies pay retailers for "top shelving" their product over their competitors? This is pretty much the same thing, they pay Paramount to put their product on the top shelf. If after 18 months (if the deal really exists) runs out BD can sign a similar contract if they feel like it.
And how do you think BD got into Blockbuster? Or Target for that matter?
Those countries ARE playing politics. They want those weapons because it makes them more "important".
Remember the whole "old Europe" vs. "new Europe" that Rumsfeld was calling for? Old Europe was France & Germany, the new ones where the new members and Spain and Italy. All of them using this as an opportunity to get some attention in Brussels. The Spaniards and Italians because they didn't want to lose their transfer payments to the new member states and the new member states because they wanted to be taken serious.
Not gonna happen anytime soon, in the US at least. The problem is that the content provider don't WANT you to have that ability. Usually they have more than one Channel they sell to the provider (and the provider in turn pays them for each customer who is subscribed to a channel). So for them forcing 10+ channels down your throat means they make 10x as much money, regardless if you watch or not.
There's more to it than just video decoding. The middleware has to be able to handle customer sign ons etc. And considering the design of Microsofts IPTV it isn't all that great. They try to do everything and seem to be rather depending on talking to the STB a lot of the time.
I'd be curious to see how a Microsoft Installation would handle 200K+ STBs coming on after a power outtage.
Working for a company that plays in the field too I think you will see a better performance with H.264, what I have seen most customers will use no more t han 6MBit/s for the HD streams and quite a bit less for the SD channels.
Microsoft, btw, is a "one box" solution, so the encoding (to my knowledge) is done with WMV/WMA.
I have no problem with buying DVDs however one of the reasons I buy a DVD is that I know it will work perfectly in any DVD I wish to buy (unlike XviD rips from BitTorrent or Usenet) however apparently this isn't true anymore so DVD is now no better than a rip downloaded from the internet.
I venture you're on the wrong trackers, the ones I usually frequent have Quality Standards that make some Studios look like backroom operations.
If I told you that 52 % of your salary would be gone *poof* for at best mediocre public services, I,m sure you would scream. (52 % = 15 + 22 + 15) I'm not even counting good wine and liquor in that: there is an awful lot of taxes on a good bottle of cognac or grappa here. Define "first rate" for me please.
Round it out as you want, you can pay a friggin good health insurance and tuition for kids when your paycheck is not cut in half. Couple of problems with this:
Most HMOs in the US only allow you to visit doctors that THEY have "certified", if you want to see someone else you can, on your dime. No such issues with the healthcare here in Canada. All doctors are part of it.
A HMO also doesn't need to HAVE you as a customer, if they don't like you (say, you are too expensive) they can raise the rates any way they like or just shitcan you. No such thing with Public Health Insurance.
I traveled the states for 3 years, and talked to people. I've lived there and travelled there extensivly.
People with my job down there are having a lot more for their money. Do they? My experience (and that of many others) has been that you get nickled and dimed to death. Sure you can live cheaply if you don't care about a few things and if you move somewhere rural you are going to be off cheaper, but if I compare my cost of living here in Vancouver with what a buddy pays in San Fran I am ~1200/month ahead AND have a nicer place.
Not to neglect also is the fact that technologically, it is way in advance. As an example, the TiVo is starting to appear here. It's not even distributed yet, you can just use it and get schedules. Yeah, and in Europe they have HighSpeed Network connections everywhere. So what if the Tivo is already available down there. That is the choice of Tivo not to sell it in Canada, not Canada not wanting the Tivo. You can get PVRs from a variety of providers (pretty much ANY cable provider / Satellite provider has a PVR for sale / rent).
We're always the last ones on the block to have the goodies. The iPhone, maybe in 10 years ? Doubt it, Rogers wants our money, it'll start here rather soon I would guess. Besides, if you want cool gadgets you may want to look outside of the large stores and find yourself a nice Chinese / Japanese importer, I got unlocked phones and other goodies there that aren't even available in the US or Europe.
French canada does not have an ounce of choice in regard to stores and some chains. I miss a lot some nice and inexpensive stores down there.... Well, that's your provincial Government. Seriously, a Government that tries to mandate that Chinatown has to have smaller Chinese Writing on their signs than French? Move to another Province and try again.
Going back to the thread, there used to be a Levy on iPods and they wanted to bring it back not so long ago. On the biggest iPod, the levy would be around 75 $. My point is simply that if I pay a levy, I will fill my iPod with downloaded tunes. Yeah and guess what. Thanks to the Levy it is still legal to download music. Without it we would be in the same boat as the americans down south. Besides, the Levy is not something the Government instituted, it was something the INDUSTRY wanted, so blame the Greedy corporations. The only difference is that we had a judge here who understood not only the levy but also the technology enough to tell the industry to go stuff it when they wanted the levy AND sue people.
I disagree sharply on US healthcare. When someone here has a "special" disease or the wait time is too long, they often send the person to the States. Health insurance down there cost a fortune and I know it, but at least when you go to the hospital, you're not losing your time and they are cleaner than here.
Ummm, how much does "jumping the line" cost you in the US compared to Canada? And I have been to a few Hospitals in both countries, visiting and being patient, and as far as cleanliness goes they were pretty much on par. Oh, and so were wait times with Canada slightly faster in one occasion.
I know it's not as uniform as I think but still, they are way ahead of us as far as equipment and conditions.
Yes, for those who can AFFORD it, which isn't the majority. Healthcare is more than just having the latest shiny toy. Studies have shown that the US system is one of the most wasteful systems in the world, not to mention the most expensive one.
The point is only that at least in the US you have the freedom to take a Private Health Insurance and pay for nice private schools. Here, you pay already a fortune for public systems that doesn't work well at all.
Have you ever been in debt because you went to a doctor? Or lost an appendage because you couldn't afford to go to the doctor? The "freedom to pay" is not a freedom but a liability. Live in the US for a while, try it on a low pay job and then come back and tell me how much you enjoyed that freedom.
The Canadian system works way more often than it does not, and even better: It is owned by the people, WE can change it, it is not done "for profit" which means nobody has to pay for a profit margine that gets paid out to CEOs and shareholders.
The numbers , exactly: For a 40K Salary
Federal Tax: Provincial Tax: 22 % (http://www.impotexpert.ca/windows/impotnet/mod_fi scales.asp) Provincial Tax: 15 % of the first 37 178 $ 22% of the rest rounds out to about 16 % (http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tax/individuals/faq/taxr ates-e.html)
I admit I went a bit overboard, but don't forget also that;
I didn't pay more than ~33% for any job I had across the provinces, go figure. The Canadian tax system is also geared to allow the lower end income people to retain more of their salary.
You pay about 15 % taxes, more on liquor and tobacco
Depends on the province you live in. Feel free to write to your PM and suggest a tax cut if you think that helps. Liquor and Tobacco have both negative health effects and aren't "basic need" so I have no problem with the higher taxes.
Finally, the US is even more splintered than Canada. I lived in a part where I had the pleasure to pay a total of 25% of taxes on Goods, how? Because I got dinged with Federal, State, County AND city tax on a can of coke.
Products that aren't avail. here because of stupid language laws (I'm a french speaker and these laws are like the gestapo) or because we are too retard to have proper suppliers of technology here get taxed at the customs, Heavily. It's your task to prove that It's not avail. here and it's impossible to do. That's why a TV in the US is always less expensive than here; we're getting screwed by the customs.
When you hate it so much, move south?
Anyone want my canadian citizenship for a US one ? You would be crazy to live here.
Use NAFTA, find a job down there then apply for a Greencard. If you really want to leave you can be down there next month and experience first hand the superior american system (place sarcasm tax were needed).
Things like the whole "Freedom Fries" incident, may have been cute over in America, but was treated with disbelief over here in the UK. We in the UK, have decades of non-serious Antagonism with the French (though deep down, we do respect them). However, we would never as a whole do that.
This incident also proved people right who consider Americans just big bullies when it comes to foreign policy.
Mind you, this was not some hick-town diner who made the change but they actually passed a vote in the SENATE to force the renaming.
"If even the "adults" are that childish, heck, can you imagine how the rest must be?"
If this incident was anything it was embarrassing to America as a nation. I am surprised the French didn't stand up and say: "Oh, grow up your little sissies." But then I guess even the French have their limits;)
Well, we haven't had a terrorist attack on our soil in 6 years.
Because, or despite of him?
And the economy is chugging along nicely.
Because of the war? Or because there is a real civilian upbeat in the market?
The Dow hit another a series of all time highs last week.
If you take the devaluation of the USD into consideration you will notice that you are still roughly 3000 points away from a high. If you adjust the value on the companies listed on the Dow Jones to 2000 Dollars you're still a bit short.
First, I don't consider (insert politically correct modifier here)-Islam to be an intangible opponent. I will live under the U. S. Constitution; I will not submit to sharia law.
That's a thing I hear over and over by the right wing extremists (and yes, sorry there is no other way to put this). Osama bin Ladin and his kind are not in the business of converting people, they use religion like it was used in Europe in the past: As political reasons to commit crimes. A WAR on Islam will backfire, simply because there are 1.2 billion (yes, with a B) Muslism in the world today.
Terror never HAD a military solution, it is a crime prevention solution and that means police work, intelligence etc. It does not mean invading other countries under false pretenses, if anything that is counter productive.
Second, do you know what percentage of GDP is spent on the war? There is far more fiscal irresponsibility in the budget (the damned prescription drug plan, for example, not to mention social security and medicare).
Last number I heard was 2 BILLION a week on Iraq alone, that does not count in Afghanistan and any other "secondary" battlefield that the Bush Administration has opened up since 9/11.
A quick Google though says 3% of the GDP is spent on Iraq. I am assuming that's just the direct visible cost. To that you probably have to add all the medical cost for the wounded soldiers, the cost of early replacement of equipment not to mention the marketing you have to spend money on to counter the negative effects in the press / world.
You're assuming that Bush is actually the one behind all this.
Sorry, he may be the president of the United States, but I am pretty sure he's the puppet, not the puppeteer.
Which leaves another question: What will Cheney do in 2009? They already considered postponing the 2004 election, maybe if they don't think they can win the 2008 one they will "delay" it? Bush gave himself the right to do so a while ago.
Sure they do. Through tax breaks, Government grants (e.g. if you build an atomic powerplant), police protection (if you move Nuclear waste), issuing permits (and building infrastructure) etc. etc.
None of this applies at the same level to the alternative energy business.
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I suggest you follow Canadian Politics a bit. Harper is doing his best at a George W. Bush impression, though I have to give him at least some Kudos for being a bit more sneaky about it than his idol.
Having said this, the current opposition doesn't really exist either, I wish the Liberals would ship Dion off to somewhere in Northern Quebec where he can talk to some Polar Bears and maybe postur a bit.
And who claims to have more exclusives? Ah yes, Blu-Ray does.
Both sides are "guilty" to some degree in it, but I think it still stings that Paramount seems to have looked at the business side of things and decided that HD DVD is the way to go, not Blu-Ray.
Why Bay gets so rallied up over it I don't quite get either, what does he care? It's not like either format has even sold a million on any title, or even combined. It's a nieche product and HD DVD has some business advantages that all the hot air that Sony and the Blu-Ray alliance are blowing won't make to go away.
With your tone and aggressiveness you could have fooled me. Which ironically enough seems to mainly be spouted from the Blu-Ray Fanbois who seem to see the second coming of $deity in the Blu-Ray disc.
Yes, and Dolby TrueHD is an audio codec. Which, btw, is Mandatory for HD DVD, on Blu-Ray it is not.
Sure, if you use MPEG2 for video and LinearPCM for Audio. If you're smart(er) you use a more efficent means of compression.
Gee, did you tell Dolby that when they developed the TrueHD standard that they basically couldn't do that?
In Blu-Ray world maybe. Not to be too harsh on Blu-Ray and it's fanbois, but this is something that is a solution that is looking for a problem.
If there would be any burners that's true, but so far I haven't seen any.
Harry Potter --> Warner Brothers, so it will be on HD DVD as well, and in the past the HD DVD releases had more features than the Blu-Ray releases, Video was the same as Warner does only one encode.
300 --> Warner, on HD DVD as well, and again with more features than the Blu-Ray version.
The Bourne Ultimatum --> Universal Studios, definitely not going to be on Blu-Ray anytime soon.
Knocked Up --> Universal Studios again, so no Blu-Ray for you!
Oceans 13 --> Warner Brothers, so it will be dual format again.
Hire a fact checker next time.
Sony should pray that their fanbois continue to buy the PS3 and hope that no third party studio releases games that people actually want to play, the moment that happens the market for the Blu-Ray discs will fall away.
How about the fact that there is only ONE HD DVD standard that tells the studio exactly what to expect in a player and build their content for that, while Blu-Ray ends up (by my last count) have four different "revisions" for players (so far), all with different capabilities. Up to this day NONE of the currently available Blu-Ray players actually has the ability to play PiP. Sure, the PS3 could if the software would be there, but that's a special case.
You ARE aware that pretty much all consumer good companies pay retailers for "top shelving" their product over their competitors? This is pretty much the same thing, they pay Paramount to put their product on the top shelf. If after 18 months (if the deal really exists) runs out BD can sign a similar contract if they feel like it.
And how do you think BD got into Blockbuster? Or Target for that matter?
Those countries ARE playing politics. They want those weapons because it makes them more "important".
Remember the whole "old Europe" vs. "new Europe" that Rumsfeld was calling for? Old Europe was France & Germany, the new ones where the new members and Spain and Italy. All of them using this as an opportunity to get some attention in Brussels. The Spaniards and Italians because they didn't want to lose their transfer payments to the new member states and the new member states because they wanted to be taken serious.
This is just the next round.
Not gonna happen anytime soon, in the US at least. The problem is that the content provider don't WANT you to have that ability. Usually they have more than one Channel they sell to the provider (and the provider in turn pays them for each customer who is subscribed to a channel). So for them forcing 10+ channels down your throat means they make 10x as much money, regardless if you watch or not.
There's more to it than just video decoding. The middleware has to be able to handle customer sign ons etc. And considering the design of Microsofts IPTV it isn't all that great. They try to do everything and seem to be rather depending on talking to the STB a lot of the time.
I'd be curious to see how a Microsoft Installation would handle 200K+ STBs coming on after a power outtage.
Working for a company that plays in the field too I think you will see a better performance with H.264, what I have seen most customers will use no more t han 6MBit/s for the HD streams and quite a bit less for the SD channels.
Microsoft, btw, is a "one box" solution, so the encoding (to my knowledge) is done with WMV/WMA.
I venture you're on the wrong trackers, the ones I usually frequent have Quality Standards that make some Studios look like backroom operations.
Hehe. I see we had / have similar experiences :)
Most HMOs in the US only allow you to visit doctors that THEY have "certified", if you want to see someone else you can, on your dime. No such issues with the healthcare here in Canada. All doctors are part of it.
A HMO also doesn't need to HAVE you as a customer, if they don't like you (say, you are too expensive) they can raise the rates any way they like or just shitcan you. No such thing with Public Health Insurance. I traveled the states for 3 years, and talked to people. I've lived there and travelled there extensivly. People with my job down there are having a lot more for their money. Do they? My experience (and that of many others) has been that you get nickled and dimed to death. Sure you can live cheaply if you don't care about a few things and if you move somewhere rural you are going to be off cheaper, but if I compare my cost of living here in Vancouver with what a buddy pays in San Fran I am ~1200/month ahead AND have a nicer place. Not to neglect also is the fact that technologically, it is way in advance. As an example, the TiVo is starting to appear here. It's not even distributed yet, you can just use it and get schedules. Yeah, and in Europe they have HighSpeed Network connections everywhere. So what if the Tivo is already available down there. That is the choice of Tivo not to sell it in Canada, not Canada not wanting the Tivo. You can get PVRs from a variety of providers (pretty much ANY cable provider / Satellite provider has a PVR for sale / rent). We're always the last ones on the block to have the goodies. The iPhone, maybe in 10 years ? Doubt it, Rogers wants our money, it'll start here rather soon I would guess. Besides, if you want cool gadgets you may want to look outside of the large stores and find yourself a nice Chinese / Japanese importer, I got unlocked phones and other goodies there that aren't even available in the US or Europe. French canada does not have an ounce of choice in regard to stores and some chains. I miss a lot some nice and inexpensive stores down there.... Well, that's your provincial Government. Seriously, a Government that tries to mandate that Chinatown has to have smaller Chinese Writing on their signs than French? Move to another Province and try again. Going back to the thread, there used to be a Levy on iPods and they wanted to bring it back not so long ago. On the biggest iPod, the levy would be around 75 $. My point is simply that if I pay a levy, I will fill my iPod with downloaded tunes. Yeah and guess what. Thanks to the Levy it is still legal to download music. Without it we would be in the same boat as the americans down south. Besides, the Levy is not something the Government instituted, it was something the INDUSTRY wanted, so blame the Greedy corporations. The only difference is that we had a judge here who understood not only the levy but also the technology enough to tell the industry to go stuff it when they wanted the levy AND sue people.
Ummm, how much does "jumping the line" cost you in the US compared to Canada? And I have been to a few Hospitals in both countries, visiting and being patient, and as far as cleanliness goes they were pretty much on par. Oh, and so were wait times with Canada slightly faster in one occasion.
Yes, for those who can AFFORD it, which isn't the majority. Healthcare is more than just having the latest shiny toy. Studies have shown that the US system is one of the most wasteful systems in the world, not to mention the most expensive one.
Have you ever been in debt because you went to a doctor? Or lost an appendage because you couldn't afford to go to the doctor? The "freedom to pay" is not a freedom but a liability. Live in the US for a while, try it on a low pay job and then come back and tell me how much you enjoyed that freedom.
The Canadian system works way more often than it does not, and even better: It is owned by the people, WE can change it, it is not done "for profit" which means nobody has to pay for a profit margine that gets paid out to CEOs and shareholders.
I didn't pay more than ~33% for any job I had across the provinces, go figure. The Canadian tax system is also geared to allow the lower end income people to retain more of their salary.
Depends on the province you live in. Feel free to write to your PM and suggest a tax cut if you think that helps. Liquor and Tobacco have both negative health effects and aren't "basic need" so I have no problem with the higher taxes.
Finally, the US is even more splintered than Canada. I lived in a part where I had the pleasure to pay a total of 25% of taxes on Goods, how? Because I got dinged with Federal, State, County AND city tax on a can of coke.
When you hate it so much, move south?
Use NAFTA, find a job down there then apply for a Greencard. If you really want to leave you can be down there next month and experience first hand the superior american system (place sarcasm tax were needed).
This incident also proved people right who consider Americans just big bullies when it comes to foreign policy.
Mind you, this was not some hick-town diner who made the change but they actually passed a vote in the SENATE to force the renaming.
"If even the "adults" are that childish, heck, can you imagine how the rest must be?"
If this incident was anything it was embarrassing to America as a nation. I am surprised the French didn't stand up and say: "Oh, grow up your little sissies." But then I guess even the French have their limits
One Acronym: NAFTA
Because, or despite of him?
Because of the war? Or because there is a real civilian upbeat in the market?
If you take the devaluation of the USD into consideration you will notice that you are still roughly 3000 points away from a high. If you adjust the value on the companies listed on the Dow Jones to 2000 Dollars you're still a bit short.
But hey, it's marketing, right?
That's a thing I hear over and over by the right wing extremists (and yes, sorry there is no other way to put this). Osama bin Ladin and his kind are not in the business of converting people, they use religion like it was used in Europe in the past: As political reasons to commit crimes. A WAR on Islam will backfire, simply because there are 1.2 billion (yes, with a B) Muslism in the world today.
Terror never HAD a military solution, it is a crime prevention solution and that means police work, intelligence etc. It does not mean invading other countries under false pretenses, if anything that is counter productive.
Last number I heard was 2 BILLION a week on Iraq alone, that does not count in Afghanistan and any other "secondary" battlefield that the Bush Administration has opened up since 9/11.
A quick Google though says 3% of the GDP is spent on Iraq. I am assuming that's just the direct visible cost. To that you probably have to add all the medical cost for the wounded soldiers, the cost of early replacement of equipment not to mention the marketing you have to spend money on to counter the negative effects in the press / world.
You're assuming that Bush is actually the one behind all this.
Sorry, he may be the president of the United States, but I am pretty sure he's the puppet, not the puppeteer.
Which leaves another question: What will Cheney do in 2009? They already considered postponing the 2004 election, maybe if they don't think they can win the 2008 one they will "delay" it? Bush gave himself the right to do so a while ago.
To stay together for the kids is the most stupidest thing you can do. Also who says HE initiated the divorce? It isn't clear who "wanted out".
Sure they do. Through tax breaks, Government grants (e.g. if you build an atomic powerplant), police protection (if you move Nuclear waste), issuing permits (and building infrastructure) etc. etc.
None of this applies at the same level to the alternative energy business.