I'm glad that you saw fit to drag out that tired old chestnut, since the IBC is disingenuous at best, by placing the blame for deaths caused by IEDs and homicide bombers on the US. However, the UN estimated one million casualties in Iraq from famine during the period of 1990-1999. At 100k deaths per annum, it would seem that Bush's action--ending the embargo and deposing Hussein--has significantly decreased the rate of civilian casualties in Iraq.
Considering Joe Kennedy's complicity in the appeasement at Munich, I could just as easily say that he's personally responsible for the death of about six million Jews. But that would be absurd to the point of stupidity, and would have no place in an intelligent and enlightened discussion such as this one.
Way to go to prove that it doesn't hurt to be stupid to be a conservative.
I commend your command of the English language.
As for the book, I never said that I didn't read it. I merely said that you didn't need to read it get an idea of what it was about. Based on your ability to comprehend one sentence, I wouldn't recommend that you even try to read a whole book.
You merely provide anecdotal evidence that Liberals tend to jump to wild conclusions based on things that they have misread.
I agree completely. Take, for example, the manner in which Joseph P. "Bush" made millions from insider trading and stockpiling of liquor during prohibition, supported appeasement of Nazi Germany, and stuck a deal with Joe McCarthy to help his son's senate campaign.
Then there's the way that John F. "Bush," after a Senate career buillt upon the tacit support of Joe McCarthy, was elected--without a majority of the popular vote--President in 1960, despite allegations of voter fraud in Texas and Richard Daley's Chicago. After delivering an inaugural speech plaigarized from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. ("...it is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for the country in return."), he made several attempts to assassinate the president of Cuba, began US involvement in Vietnam, and, after repeated humiliations by Nikita Khrushchev, allowed construction of the Berlin Wall.
His younger brother, Edward M. "Bush," got drunk one night and drove his car into the sea, leaving a female passenger to drown, and promptly calling his lawyer, then going home for the night, leaving the submerged car undiscovered until the next morning.
Ted's nephew, William "Bush" Smith, had a medical career plagued by allegations of rape and sexual harrassment, including several lawsuits settled out-of-court.
Replace "Bush" with "Kennedy," and I agree with your assessment. Unprecedented corruption? Hardly.
Physics, astronomy, computer science, engineering, are these at odds with conservative politics? Because that's what I've had the most experience with personally and I have also observed a majority of world-class faculty with liberal leanings socially and politically.
I'm in the sciences, as well. Most professors I've met are willfully ignorant of politics, and I've only seen two in my undergraduate and graduate career who have even mentioned politics in the classroom. But again, there are fields that are inherently liberal. Climate Science comes to mind. Quantum Mechanics, OTOH, is rather hard to politicize.
I have no idea what you are trying to say here.
Dr. William F. Keegan, for example, from the University of Florida, has a book titled The People Who Discovered Columbus. You don't need to read it to get an idea of the main thrust of his work.
Dr. Kwame Nantambu, Professor Emeritus at Kent State, insists that Africans colonized the West Indies and then discovered Columbus.
But reductio-ad-absurdum revisionism of Columbus was just an example to illustrate my point that many academics are firmly detached from reality. Let us not forget that Ward Churchill, the man who may have lied about his lack of Native American Heritage to get a teaching position, compared employees in the World Trade Center to Adolph Eichmann. That's what I'm talking about.
That was not at all the argument that was made, but don't let that stop you. The grandparent referred to "Europe and elsewhere" which is clearly intended to mean "outside the U.S." Europe is particularly worth singling out in this context because it has a strong history (and modern presence) of socialist politics, especially compared to the U.S.
Point taken, but you failed to address the validity of any of the "great ideas" from Europe, which was actually my point. Pick two of the following: Eugenics, "Socialism in One Country (as implemented by the late, great Iosef Stalin)", Fascism, or Irredentism, and let us hear your spirited defense.
Well then what the hell are they doing in college? If this is as serious a problem as the recent highly publicized studies would have one believe, then liberal bias is not at the top of the list of things to worry about in academia.
Taken together, there's going to be a trickle-down effect of liberal indoctrination. If you have an unsophisticated student body being repeatedly exposed to liberal views, then the net result is more liberals coming out of colleges, mindlessly parroting whatever they "learned". After all, I don't really understand the argument, but he's a professor, and I have trouble reading the funny papers, so he must be right! And just take the more intelligent students and stick them in one of Joseph Massad's classes at Columbia, where they can be browbeaten into having pro-Palestinian views in front of their peers.
Thank you for presenting the box-standard version of the liberals-are-smarter-than-the-simple-minded-conser vatives-and-that's-why-they're-in-academia argument. But I shall humor you for a bit.
When the majority of the best and brightest in the country all lean towards a particular political philosophy, what should that tell you?
It tells me that a number of fields taught at universities are inherently at odds with conservative political philosophy. Sociology, Women's Studies, Afro-American Studies, and English (to name a few) are all inherently liberal fields. What you end up with are professors sacked by Harvard for recording rap CDs instead of writing serious academic works. When Harvard fires a Marxist, you know there's something wrong with him.
In more conservative fields, like those taught in business schools, you couldn't pay the best and brightest enough to come back and teach, since they're too busy applying their talents to making absolute shitloads of money. So you get second-rate faculty teaching, instead, regardless of their politics.
You can argue that academics are too detached from reality, but I think that's wishful thinking from bitter people.
Yet you still get those who insist that so-called "Native Americans" discovered Columbus, despite the fact that the latter sailed thousands of miles over several weeks while the former didn't leave their mud huts.
They tend to take a less simplified view of things, and to be more open to ideas coming from Europe and elsewhere.
Back to the standard "ideas that come from Europe must be valid, just beacuse they come from Europe" argument. Here's a list of good ideas that have come from Europe: Communism, Collective Farming, Command Economics, Colonialism, The Paris Commune, Fascism, and, of course, Nazism. Don't even think of trying to invoke Godwin's Law, because the preceding was exceedingly germane. Remember, Europe is where soccer hooligans make monkey noises when a black player gets the ball. Quite sophisticated.
And if all that taken together leads one to a more socialist stance, that view should be taken seriously.
I'll defer to Monty Python's Bruces on this one: "In addition, as he's going to be teaching politics, I've told him he's welcome to teach any of the great socialist thinkers, provided he makes it clear that they were all wrong."
There's nothing wrong with talking about your opinions in a university class where everyone is assumed to be a rational adult.
Especially when at least half of them are damn near illiterate (vide infra).
I had a similar experience. I went to the public elementary school in my district that had some sort of entrance exam (I don't remember exactly what, since I was in kindergarten at the time), and learned pretty much nothing from 6th grade until I started taking AP courses in 11th grade. In college, it definitely seemed as though I learned more in courses in which I got lower grades. Maybe it just seemed that way, though, since things that came more easily to me didn't make me feel like I was learning anything.
15-20 years ago a guy working on his PhD told me that that getting a PhD had become like getting a MA or MS had been a generation earlier, getting a MA/MS like getting a BA/BS had been, getting a BA/BS like graduating from high school had been, and so on down the chain.
Exactly. A Chemistry PhD in the '60s took about three years to get, and doing a postdoc was unheard of. Now it's 5-6 years for the PhD, with at least one postdoc of at least two years before you can even consider going for an academic job. Blame WWII and the GI bill for devaluing--while increasing the cost of--a college education.
What I find odd is that many Universities have a foreign language requirement that exceeds the English requirement. My school, for example, required four semesters of a foreigh language, but at most, two semesters of English. I say "at most" because one could easily substitute Music or Art courses in place of English (which I did). The only thing close to an English Literacy Graduation Requirement was that all students were required to take a one-semester writing seminar. Having had to read and revise my peer's papers in this seminar, I could only conlcude that one semester clearly wasn't enough, and this was at a large, private, east-coast university that is consistently named in US News & World Report's top 10.
A comment can't be modded Troll, Flamebait, AND Offtopic unless it gets some points first. Seing as how ID pertains only to biological systems, I haven't a clue what gp is talking about.
Funny that you should metion the right to privacy. SCOTUS has ruled on the use of thermal imaging devices as a search requiring a warrant based on the logic that such devices weren't widely available to the public. Presumably the new devices would follow this precedent, requiring a court order for police use, unless they're "in general public use."
That would make more sense, since 17 torr at an elevation of 26 km is damn near a vacuum, and 11 km is closer to the Summit of Everest or the cruising altitude of a commercial airliner, both of which are probably pretty uncomfortable without extra oxygen, but also probably doable.
That would explain the GPS navigation system in your Jeep or Hummer (or even Saab) which you drive on the Interstate Highway System, the pilots (a non-trivial fraction of whom are air force/navy retirees) who fly commercial aircraft, your electricity from nuclear power plants, the internet (arpanet) you used to post this tripe, and, of course, the freedoms you enjoy. Yeah, the military-industrial complex has never done anything for civilians.
Aluminium and Caesium are the correct IUPACspellings of those elements for historical reasons.
Caesium comes straight from the Latin caesius for the color sky blue, which is the most prominent line in the element's emission spectrum. Aluminium was so named because many elements at the time had -ium suffixes, and is the official spelling endorsed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. The American Chemical Society, however, uses "Aluminum".
Shove some extra memory in the case, and the candy-coloured iBooks still can run X at a pretty reasonable speed. Certainly faster than rebooting every 5 minutes from assorted crashes. Obviously not worth it if you have to buy OS X, but if you have a spare copy lying around it makes a great occasional-use spare computer.
ugh... sent my reply before I was done. Wouldn't a lighter bullet give you *more* muzzle velocity which, coupled with a stronger material, would give you better armor piercing ability?
Tungsten sulfide is actually less dense (~7 g/cm^3) than lead (~11 g/cm^3), so bullets made of that material would likely be lighter than ordinary lead bullets.
Communism is a political philosophy dedicated to overthrowing *all* governments in the world and replacing them with proliterian dictatorships. Failure to understand how one's being "a communism" can be interpreted as subversive by *any* goverment demonstrates your overwhelming ignorance, unless you, in fact, are a "communism" youself.
Regarding the need for a revolution, I shall defer to the Beatles: "...and if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao/you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow." Clearly Homeland Security follows the Lennon/McCartney precedent for this issue.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
I don't know what you see as "aid and comfort," but I assure you that covert surveillance, kidnapping, indefinite detainment, torture, &c. don't fit under that particular umbrella.
High quality goods are a lot less expensive in China.
They're also made there with cheap labor; those involved at the lowest level of the manufacturing process can't even think about purchasing what they make. The same surely can't be said of the US. The higher cost of goods in the US is related to the higher level of well-being of those involved in getting them to the consumer.
Also comparing GDP per person doesn't work well when the ratio is on the order of 4:1.
I'll entertain that notion for the moment. Their GDP is about $7.6 trillion, ours 11.7. Theirs is growing at about 9.1%, ours 4.4. In five years, ceretis paribus, they'll be where we are now, but we'll be in the neighborhood of 14.6. However, they'll still have a billion or so more people, many of whom are peasants. Yes, they still have peasants (estimated to be between 800 and 900 million). I think that precludes their entry into "first-world" status. If you convert the numbers to GDP per capita sine rusticis, then they're pretty close to the US. But that's ignoring well over half of their population, which is kinda hard to do.
I assure you that the prosperity you saw in Hong Kong had nothing to do with it's former status as a part of the British Empire, what with all the capitalism and such.
As for the US' being a third-world country, you're immediately wrong by definition, even if you are still using outdated cold-war terminology, since the US was first-world by definition. Regardless, the US' GDP per capita (in 2004) comes in at a lowly $40,100 compared to China's $5,600. That puts China at 121st in the world, vs. 2nd for the US. Please open your ass and remove your head.
Income tax: 3.07% vs. 5.3% in MA. Both are flat. Sales tax: 6% vs. 5% in MA. PA, however, has exemptions for food, clothing, textbooks, and drugs; only exception in MA is food, and judging by my grocery receipts, it's doesn't apply to all food items. Since most of my purchases are food, clothing, or textbooks, PA wins this one. Minimum auto insurance is for lower liability limits and is cheaper in PA; gas is also cheaper. The move cost me about $100 more per annum in insurance.
Let's not forget the annual car tax in MA. I also see you tactfully didn't address the issue of Massholes.
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I'm glad that you saw fit to drag out that tired old chestnut, since the IBC is disingenuous at best, by placing the blame for deaths caused by IEDs and homicide bombers on the US. However, the UN estimated one million casualties in Iraq from famine during the period of 1990-1999. At 100k deaths per annum, it would seem that Bush's action--ending the embargo and deposing Hussein--has significantly decreased the rate of civilian casualties in Iraq.
Considering Joe Kennedy's complicity in the appeasement at Munich, I could just as easily say that he's personally responsible for the death of about six million Jews. But that would be absurd to the point of stupidity, and would have no place in an intelligent and enlightened discussion such as this one.
Way to go to prove that it doesn't hurt to be stupid to be a conservative.
I commend your command of the English language.
As for the book, I never said that I didn't read it. I merely said that you didn't need to read it get an idea of what it was about. Based on your ability to comprehend one sentence, I wouldn't recommend that you even try to read a whole book.
You merely provide anecdotal evidence that Liberals tend to jump to wild conclusions based on things that they have misread.
I agree completely. Take, for example, the manner in which Joseph P. "Bush" made millions from insider trading and stockpiling of liquor during prohibition, supported appeasement of Nazi Germany, and stuck a deal with Joe McCarthy to help his son's senate campaign.
Then there's the way that John F. "Bush," after a Senate career buillt upon the tacit support of Joe McCarthy, was elected--without a majority of the popular vote--President in 1960, despite allegations of voter fraud in Texas and Richard Daley's Chicago. After delivering an inaugural speech plaigarized from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. ("...it is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for the country in return."), he made several attempts to assassinate the president of Cuba, began US involvement in Vietnam, and, after repeated humiliations by Nikita Khrushchev, allowed construction of the Berlin Wall.
His younger brother, Edward M. "Bush," got drunk one night and drove his car into the sea, leaving a female passenger to drown, and promptly calling his lawyer, then going home for the night, leaving the submerged car undiscovered until the next morning.
Ted's nephew, William "Bush" Smith, had a medical career plagued by allegations of rape and sexual harrassment, including several lawsuits settled out-of-court.
Replace "Bush" with "Kennedy," and I agree with your assessment. Unprecedented corruption? Hardly.
Physics, astronomy, computer science, engineering, are these at odds with conservative politics? Because that's what I've had the most experience with personally and I have also observed a majority of world-class faculty with liberal leanings socially and politically.
I'm in the sciences, as well. Most professors I've met are willfully ignorant of politics, and I've only seen two in my undergraduate and graduate career who have even mentioned politics in the classroom. But again, there are fields that are inherently liberal. Climate Science comes to mind. Quantum Mechanics, OTOH, is rather hard to politicize.
I have no idea what you are trying to say here.
Dr. William F. Keegan, for example, from the University of Florida, has a book titled The People Who Discovered Columbus. You don't need to read it to get an idea of the main thrust of his work.
Dr. Kwame Nantambu, Professor Emeritus at Kent State, insists that Africans colonized the West Indies and then discovered Columbus.
But reductio-ad-absurdum revisionism of Columbus was just an example to illustrate my point that many academics are firmly detached from reality. Let us not forget that Ward Churchill, the man who may have lied about his lack of Native American Heritage to get a teaching position, compared employees in the World Trade Center to Adolph Eichmann. That's what I'm talking about.
That was not at all the argument that was made, but don't let that stop you. The grandparent referred to "Europe and elsewhere" which is clearly intended to mean "outside the U.S." Europe is particularly worth singling out in this context because it has a strong history (and modern presence) of socialist politics, especially compared to the U.S.
Point taken, but you failed to address the validity of any of the "great ideas" from Europe, which was actually my point. Pick two of the following: Eugenics, "Socialism in One Country (as implemented by the late, great Iosef Stalin)", Fascism, or Irredentism, and let us hear your spirited defense.
Well then what the hell are they doing in college? If this is as serious a problem as the recent highly publicized studies would have one believe, then liberal bias is not at the top of the list of things to worry about in academia.
Taken together, there's going to be a trickle-down effect of liberal indoctrination. If you have an unsophisticated student body being repeatedly exposed to liberal views, then the net result is more liberals coming out of colleges, mindlessly parroting whatever they "learned". After all, I don't really understand the argument, but he's a professor, and I have trouble reading the funny papers, so he must be right! And just take the more intelligent students and stick them in one of Joseph Massad's classes at Columbia, where they can be browbeaten into having pro-Palestinian views in front of their peers.
Thank you for presenting the box-standard version of the liberals-are-smarter-than-the-simple-minded-conser vatives-and-that's-why-they're-in-academia argument. But I shall humor you for a bit.
When the majority of the best and brightest in the country all lean towards a particular political philosophy, what should that tell you?
It tells me that a number of fields taught at universities are inherently at odds with conservative political philosophy. Sociology, Women's Studies, Afro-American Studies, and English (to name a few) are all inherently liberal fields. What you end up with are professors sacked by Harvard for recording rap CDs instead of writing serious academic works. When Harvard fires a Marxist, you know there's something wrong with him.
In more conservative fields, like those taught in business schools, you couldn't pay the best and brightest enough to come back and teach, since they're too busy applying their talents to making absolute shitloads of money. So you get second-rate faculty teaching, instead, regardless of their politics.
You can argue that academics are too detached from reality, but I think that's wishful thinking from bitter people.
Yet you still get those who insist that so-called "Native Americans" discovered Columbus, despite the fact that the latter sailed thousands of miles over several weeks while the former didn't leave their mud huts.
They tend to take a less simplified view of things, and to be more open to ideas coming from Europe and elsewhere.
Back to the standard "ideas that come from Europe must be valid, just beacuse they come from Europe" argument. Here's a list of good ideas that have come from Europe: Communism, Collective Farming, Command Economics, Colonialism, The Paris Commune, Fascism, and, of course, Nazism. Don't even think of trying to invoke Godwin's Law, because the preceding was exceedingly germane. Remember, Europe is where soccer hooligans make monkey noises when a black player gets the ball. Quite sophisticated.
And if all that taken together leads one to a more socialist stance, that view should be taken seriously.
I'll defer to Monty Python's Bruces on this one: "In addition, as he's going to be teaching politics, I've told him he's welcome to teach any of the great socialist thinkers, provided he makes it clear that they were all wrong."
There's nothing wrong with talking about your opinions in a university class where everyone is assumed to be a rational adult.
Especially when at least half of them are damn near illiterate (vide infra).
I had a similar experience. I went to the public elementary school in my district that had some sort of entrance exam (I don't remember exactly what, since I was in kindergarten at the time), and learned pretty much nothing from 6th grade until I started taking AP courses in 11th grade. In college, it definitely seemed as though I learned more in courses in which I got lower grades. Maybe it just seemed that way, though, since things that came more easily to me didn't make me feel like I was learning anything.
15-20 years ago a guy working on his PhD told me that that getting a PhD had become like getting a MA or MS had been a generation earlier, getting a MA/MS like getting a BA/BS had been, getting a BA/BS like graduating from high school had been, and so on down the chain.
Exactly. A Chemistry PhD in the '60s took about three years to get, and doing a postdoc was unheard of. Now it's 5-6 years for the PhD, with at least one postdoc of at least two years before you can even consider going for an academic job. Blame WWII and the GI bill for devaluing--while increasing the cost of--a college education.
What I find odd is that many Universities have a foreign language requirement that exceeds the English requirement. My school, for example, required four semesters of a foreigh language, but at most, two semesters of English. I say "at most" because one could easily substitute Music or Art courses in place of English (which I did). The only thing close to an English Literacy Graduation Requirement was that all students were required to take a one-semester writing seminar. Having had to read and revise my peer's papers in this seminar, I could only conlcude that one semester clearly wasn't enough, and this was at a large, private, east-coast university that is consistently named in US News & World Report's top 10.
Grandparent illustrates the point on education and literacy very well.
And the thought that in modern times he'd be locked up under the PATRIOT act is truly sad... ...not if you're England.
A comment can't be modded Troll, Flamebait, AND Offtopic unless it gets some points first. Seing as how ID pertains only to biological systems, I haven't a clue what gp is talking about.
Funny that you should metion the right to privacy. SCOTUS has ruled on the use of thermal imaging devices as a search requiring a warrant based on the logic that such devices weren't widely available to the public. Presumably the new devices would follow this precedent, requiring a court order for police use, unless they're "in general public use."
That would make more sense, since 17 torr at an elevation of 26 km is damn near a vacuum, and 11 km is closer to the Summit of Everest or the cruising altitude of a commercial airliner, both of which are probably pretty uncomfortable without extra oxygen, but also probably doable.
That would explain the GPS navigation system in your Jeep or Hummer (or even Saab) which you drive on the Interstate Highway System, the pilots (a non-trivial fraction of whom are air force/navy retirees) who fly commercial aircraft, your electricity from nuclear power plants, the internet (arpanet) you used to post this tripe, and, of course, the freedoms you enjoy. Yeah, the military-industrial complex has never done anything for civilians.
Where in Iraq are they using Diebold voting machines? I thought they were on the paper ballot/inked thumb system.
Aluminium and Caesium are the correct IUPAC spellings of those elements for historical reasons.
Caesium comes straight from the Latin caesius for the color sky blue, which is the most prominent line in the element's emission spectrum. Aluminium was so named because many elements at the time had -ium suffixes, and is the official spelling endorsed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. The American Chemical Society, however, uses "Aluminum".
Shove some extra memory in the case, and the candy-coloured iBooks still can run X at a pretty reasonable speed. Certainly faster than rebooting every 5 minutes from assorted crashes. Obviously not worth it if you have to buy OS X, but if you have a spare copy lying around it makes a great occasional-use spare computer.
ugh... sent my reply before I was done. Wouldn't a lighter bullet give you *more* muzzle velocity which, coupled with a stronger material, would give you better armor piercing ability?
Tungsten sulfide is actually less dense (~7 g/cm^3) than lead (~11 g/cm^3), so bullets made of that material would likely be lighter than ordinary lead bullets.
...or bullets made of the same ultra-strong material?
Of course. And I suppose the only reason that it has failed to be implemented in such a manner is that the right people have yet to try it?
Communism is a political philosophy dedicated to overthrowing *all* governments in the world and replacing them with proliterian dictatorships. Failure to understand how one's being "a communism" can be interpreted as subversive by *any* goverment demonstrates your overwhelming ignorance, unless you, in fact, are a "communism" youself.
Regarding the need for a revolution, I shall defer to the Beatles: "...and if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao/you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow." Clearly Homeland Security follows the Lennon/McCartney precedent for this issue.
Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
I don't know what you see as "aid and comfort," but I assure you that covert surveillance, kidnapping, indefinite detainment, torture, &c. don't fit under that particular umbrella.
High quality goods are a lot less expensive in China.
They're also made there with cheap labor; those involved at the lowest level of the manufacturing process can't even think about purchasing what they make. The same surely can't be said of the US. The higher cost of goods in the US is related to the higher level of well-being of those involved in getting them to the consumer.
Also comparing GDP per person doesn't work well when the ratio is on the order of 4:1.
I'll entertain that notion for the moment. Their GDP is about $7.6 trillion, ours 11.7. Theirs is growing at about 9.1%, ours 4.4. In five years, ceretis paribus, they'll be where we are now, but we'll be in the neighborhood of 14.6. However, they'll still have a billion or so more people, many of whom are peasants. Yes, they still have peasants (estimated to be between 800 and 900 million). I think that precludes their entry into "first-world" status. If you convert the numbers to GDP per capita sine rusticis, then they're pretty close to the US. But that's ignoring well over half of their population, which is kinda hard to do.
I assure you that the prosperity you saw in Hong Kong had nothing to do with it's former status as a part of the British Empire, what with all the capitalism and such.
As for the US' being a third-world country, you're immediately wrong by definition, even if you are still using outdated cold-war terminology, since the US was first-world by definition. Regardless, the US' GDP per capita (in 2004) comes in at a lowly $40,100 compared to China's $5,600. That puts China at 121st in the world, vs. 2nd for the US. Please open your ass and remove your head.
Originally from Pennsylvania.
Income tax: 3.07% vs. 5.3% in MA. Both are flat.
Sales tax: 6% vs. 5% in MA. PA, however, has exemptions for food, clothing, textbooks, and drugs; only exception in MA is food, and judging by my grocery receipts, it's doesn't apply to all food items. Since most of my purchases are food, clothing, or textbooks, PA wins this one.
Minimum auto insurance is for lower liability limits and is cheaper in PA; gas is also cheaper. The move cost me about $100 more per annum in insurance.
Let's not forget the annual car tax in MA. I also see you tactfully didn't address the issue of Massholes.