That issue can be solved easily by using a regional system. So apart from locale, you can just follow national standards for things as defined borders, etc. For instance, in Google Maps in Argentina, you could see the Falklands labeled as Malvinas, while in the UK version you could see the Malvinas labeled Falklands. Same deal for the rest of places in dispute. No more controversy.

Tell that to the government in Beijing. The only thing that has prevented mainland China from taking over Taiwan is direct confrontation with the US. So in a way, Taiwan is a "country" that exists because of the US, very much like South Ossetia exists because of Russia, but in fact it is still part of Georgia.

This is the major reason why I always choose Mac laptops. I have been through three of their laptops, starting with the white iBook and they all worked flawlessly. It never ceases to amaze me to this day that only until recently is that I have found some Windows laptops that are able to behave like the Macs in this regard. Then again when you see the kind of crap Apple pulled with the video cards of the new MacBook Pros it becomes hard to recommend Apple nowadays.

And you are forgetting that it is almost a disgrace for a Japanese family to have one of their women married to a foreigner. It is in their culture and they are not even shy about it.

Shouldn't they be pleased? That's exactly what the Japanese ended up doing to a lot of folk. So in a weird sense of justice, it is only fair that they had to endure that. The atomic bombs were too much, even for a nation full of unrepentant war criminals.

Just because somebody is poor does not make them trash. Even if you want to be an elitist there are less offensive ways to state the same thing without paiting yourself like an asshole.

Actually what Amazon is doing amounts to driving out the competition and there are several anti-dumping laws in place to deal with those issues. Just because it is a well known brand as opposed to some nameless Chinese factory does not make it right. Monopolies are not good.

The whole NYC metro system is something I really cannot understand about the US. I haven't visited the whole world but NY city metro is by far the worst I have been, starting with the dirty station that includes God knows how many rats and the old equipment. Hell there are places in Latin America that have better stuff. Sure it has a lot of coverage and works 24/7 but either everybody else is doing something extraordinary or I don't know what's the deal.

So now seeing this whole 'debate' about whether to use articulated cars is like watching a discussion about the merits of the wheel to improve transportation. They really need to invest heavily into the system, especially in a city like NY where millions depend on the subway as their primary mean of transportation.

Venezuela? Dude you should really go over there, there are shortages of toilet paper as we speak. Whenever I hear such remarks is when I realize is that the menace to the world is not only the US government, but people like yourself as well. And that is a far bigger threat than the Iranians getting nukes or some crazies killing each other in the Middle East.

I would really like to know which state of the US you are from since you have reached a level of stupidity I haven't seen in a while.

Care to show any proof of such ramblings?

In Spanish it is called America where is the confusion comes from. Remember that after all the whole thing is named after Americo Vespucci. I think the main issue here is that people in the British colonies referred to them as Americans to differentiate from Europeans, while the Spanish and Portuguese parts of the continent referred themselves as From The Indies, or criollos (creoles). Either way, Europeans in the Americas liked to say they were more pure and that brought a lot of social friction that still remains in Latin America mostly.

Jesus, no micropayments for WoW, that would ruin the game. We have enough with the gold sellers already.

Amen to that, being a non-US citizen I truly feel disconnected from what the US keeps doing. To the point where I am working my ass off to learn how to run everything myself (email,web, etc) using Debian/OpenBSD. And this is coming from a guy who had a US flag with a painted Harley in his room as a teenager.

The fall of the Soviet Union and 9/11 changed the US in a truly bad way. It is kind of like the same story of every monopoly, after they reach total control it is like the beginning of the end. Kind of like what happened with Ancient Rome and Alexander the Great.

Reading your post I cannot fail but realize that the terrorist behind 9/11 actually won. They have screwed American politics so bad into this fear everybody mentality that now what the US govt is doing feels like a time bomb waiting to explode.