Oh, come on. British influence was in the 19th century.

Britain was still trying to hang on to its colonies until the mid-60's. And this wasn't some benign protective impulse, it was motivated by greed, exploitation, and racism. Britain only gave those up it became unprofitable. The entire Iran disaster and the reason we are facing a nuclear threat from Iran is due to Britain and her economic interests, first begging America for help, and then disavowing any responsibility and leaving the mess to the Americans when it blew up. France's post-WWII colonial history is just as sordid.

It weren't the British who were funding the PDPA or arming the Mujahideen using billions of dollars.

That was part of the Cold War, and it was Europe that was responsible for the existence of the Cold War in the first place: European political ideologies, European wars, and ancient European enmities. And it was Europe's inability to defend itself against the Soviets that pushed the US into the role of having to deploy its military around the world to keep the USSR in check.

Why do they have a similar monopoly over domains like .gov? Why, indeed, do domains like gov exist?

Different registrars were created in different countries over time for different TLDs. The COM/EDU/GOV/ORG TLDs have always been US administered. Everybody who signed up under one of those TLDs knew whose jurisdiction and control it fell under. If you didn't want US jurisdiction or control, you should have signed up somewhere else. Changing the jurisdiction after the fact is not acceptable (and probably legally not even possible).

The US created the original TLD system, and ".COM" was only for companies with DARPA-related business, which effectively meant a subset of US companies. Eventually, the US dropped those restrictions and more companies started registering. Because the US is laissez-faire about it, it also allowed foreign companies to register. Then, eventually, other nations got their act together and created their own TLDs.

The .COM TLD is managed by the US according to US rules because the US created it. The fact that it is more lenient about managing it than (say) the EU is about the .EU domain doesn't mean that other countries all of a sudden have acquired a right to tell the US how to run .COM. If you don't like the way the US runs it, use a different TLD.

NATO is a DEFENCE alliance, according to wikipedia "its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party". Saying that Europe isn't living up to it's commitement by not beeing enough involved in the Libyan civil war is just ridiculous,

Well, and I'm not saying that. Europe hasn't been living up to its financial commitments for decades, instead relying on the US to defend it, both during the cold war and afterwards. And you are absolutely right that Libya had nothing to do with NATO or NATO objectives, but it was the Europeans that called for the US to help with it. The US response to Europe should have been "fix your own damned problems". Unfortunately, if the US stops being involved, Europe will spiral down the economic or totalitarian drain again, and that's bad for the US as well.

You don't want the US telling you how to live your life? Then get your act together, pay for your own military, and fix your economies. It's as easy as that.

Who are the US troops protecting us from?

Ask your own politicians. I mean, US troops aren't there for fun, they are there as part of the NATO defense pact. If the UK considers it no longer necessary, it can simply leave NATO. And since WWII, the UK keeps asking for US help with European problems:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ace535c2-b088-11e0-a5a7-00144feab49a.html

But worry not: US politicians are increasingly getting tired of this b.s. Maybe soon you'll be able to clean up the messes that European colonialism left around the world and in your backyard yourself again.

I'm not sure what you where you got your info from but Europe actually DOES pay for it's own defence. NATO is a defence ALLIANCE

Yes, it is an alliance, and Europe isn't living up to its commitment.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/10/gates-blasts-nato-questions-future-alliance/

http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2011/06/10/6830603-gates-nato-alliance-future-could-be-dim-dismal

the only thing it's european members has gotten out of it so far is having to help fight some US war in Afghanistan

Well, geez, who created the mess in Afghanistan in the first place? Oh, right, European colonial powers. Same in Libya, the Middle East, South East Asia, and Africa.

You really do not know much about what's going on outside the US, do you?

You really are the typical European: ignorant of your own history and anything outside your home village.

That's a little hard when ICANN and Verisign (the company that handles .com .net and even some other countries TLD's) are US companies, don't you think? The US can keep their .us TLD, which is the actual TLD given to United States.

You are sadly mistaken. The ".com" registrar is in the US because the US created the software, hardware, and domain name. Eventually, the US opened it up to foreign registrants. But if you don't like the way the US administers the domain, register your domain name somewhere else.

They're policing the world in the same sense a bully "polices" his classroom. In either case, nobody asked them to and nobody wants them to.

Nobody asked them to? What planet are you from? If Europeans didn't want US troops in Europe, they could leave NATO, ask US troops to leave, and pay for their own defense. The US tax payer would thank them enormously. Instead, Europeans are happy to be protected by US troops, even happier not to have to pay for it, and then have the gall to complain about how "militaristic" the US supposedly is.

Orly? Who will be glad for the US taking the case when Julian Assange gets extradited?

Oh, typical: Europe is getting rid of a political hot potato and then placing the blame on the US.

Believe me, the US would love to be able to get out of Europe and Asia. The reason we don't is because Europeans are clearly still not capable of managing their own affairs. Europe doesn't even live up to its commitments under NATO, and whenever there is any problem, it is Europe that calls for US help. Many of the things you accuse the US of is exactly what Europe has been doing for centuries and continues to attempt (but fortunately lacks the power to push through in many cases these days).

But, CmdrPony, with your ignorant, knee-jerk anti-Americanism, you are part of a long tradition of European totalitariansim, fascism, communism, and nationalism. I expect once the US tax payer gets tired of paying for the US military and pulls out of Europe, it will be people like you who will start WWIII.

The ".com" domain is the domain for US commercial entities; there is no other. Because the US is fairly laissez-faire about it, a lot of foreign registrants have been able to get .com domains, but that doesn't make the TLD "international".

Europe has jurisdiction over .eu, .fr, .de, and other TLDs. The US has jurisdiction over .com, .edu, .org, ..net and a few others.

I just don't like to waste my money on inferior technology. I'm going to buy the Galaxy Nexus the day it comes out, though ;-)

One of the more profound ways that the iPhone changed the mobile industry was the fact that it upended the relationship between the handset maker and the wireless carrier:

It sure did! Instead of a big, evil corporation screwing their customers, charging inflated prices, and delivering a product prone to failures... we now have another big, evil corporation screwing their customers, charging inflated prices, and delivering a product prone to failures!

Have a look here:

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2011/06/06/School-Budgets-The-Worst-Education-Money-Can-Buy.aspx#page1

Which public school district spends the most taxpayer money per student? One in Beverly Hills, perhaps? Or one in the swanky Park Avenue area of Manhattan?

Actually, it's a district in Camden, N.J., according to new Census data on public school spending. Best known for urban blight and local corruption, Camden has an unemployment rate of 17 percent and 35 percent of its 80,000 inhabitants live below the poverty line. Fifty percent of residents are black, 15.5 percent white, 2.6 percent Asian; 10,000 people are crammed into each square mile. In 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation ranked it as the most dangerous city in America.

Camden High School, with an enrollment of 1,200 students, has less than a 40 percent graduation rate, and the former district chief of security Thomas Hewes-Eddinger has called it a âoemini-jail.â Yet the district spends $23,356 per student, more than twice the national average.

Nearly 2,200 miles away lies the opposite example: the lowest-cost school district . Alpine school district is located in American Fork, Utah, a town of 27,000 people at the foot of Mount Timpanogos. The racial makeup is 95 percent white, 0.16 percent black and 0.65 percent Asian. The town's median household income is $52,000; 4 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. The district spends a mere $5,658 per student, nearly half the national average, and has a 78 percent graduation rate.

Although they represent the extremes, these very different districts illustrate a troubling pattern that emerges in the school-spending data: The 10 most expensive schools have some of the lowest graduations rates, and the 10 schools that spend the least per student have some of the highest.

You could give equal budgets to all schools independent of where are they located, for example. We don't and that is one way we make society systemically racist.

That may or may not be a good idea (and there is considerable redistribution of money at the state level already), but it has nothing to do with racism. The fact that poor black neighborhoods have bad schools is because they are poor, not because they are black. A black school district can make the same tradeoffs in terms of school financing as an equivalently poor white school district.

Furthermore, poor education is not a question of money; even poor school districts in the US spend a lot more money (PPP) per student than most school systems around the world.

There may be no laws in place, but the system is set up in a way that is biased.

It's not racially biased. It's economically biased: if you have more money, you can do more things. How and why do you propose to change that?

Poor people are disproportionally black, and tend to live with areas with shitty schools and no jobs. Bam! They aren't getting out of it!

Blacks are poorer because there used to be discrimination until 1-2 generations ago. That's been abolished, and now their incomes are slowly rising and improving, at about the same rate as other poor people. It probably takes another half dozen generations until the inequality has gone away. It is just totally irrational to expect blacks to become as rich on average as whites within such a short time..

We have the same shit with the Romas here, and nobody likes to talk about it.

Romas actually experience clear legal discrimination and prevented from integration. That is different from African Americans.