Or, you know, you could make sure everyone has the *right* to paid maternity (or paternity) leave, as in most of the world... That you have to depend on the goodwill of your employer in cases like this is mindboggingly insane.

Ugh.. Would you please stop sounding like a typical American rube? I'm a socialist and I can guarantee you that Obama ain't one. What is so hard about looking up the definition of the terms you're using before spouting them off as some kind of nonsensical insult?

Also - spelling, grammars and general coherence would go a long way towards making your argument for you.

This is not necessarily for bank operations, at least in Sweden, it can be used to log in to the bank but the banks have their own primary authentication methods that can in turn be used to obtain a bankid. Bankid is used for things like the tax authority.

If I remember correctly - isn't Tesla essentially doing what you're suggesting with the Model S? I believe they update OTA, so it can certainly be done.

In Sweden ours is called BankID but I don't think it's the same vendor (the actual program I believe is called Nexus Personal), it's not in Java but is a native plugin, or a mobile app as that's how I'm using it, so much more convenient.
You would think they could cooperate and build a common system for stuff like this, especially with nations as small as ours.

Understanding English in principle and understanding fast-paced dialogue in English are two different things entirely. My parents understand English (though they are somewhat reluctant to speak English), but they still rely on subtitles for English-language TV-programs. Also, kids don't achieve a level of English understanding that would be sufficient to watch many popular movies until maybe their mid-to-late teens, until then reading is their only hope of understanding popular movies.

That's not to say that this is the sole contributing factor, but I would agree with the GP that it does play a part. A larger factor is probably the traditional egalitarianism of our countries with little segregation, meaning kids performing bad and kids performing well are not segregated to the same extent as many other countries and can learn from each other, though this is going away more and more at least in Sweden as society is becoming more segregated, and this also coincides with a drop in our standing in international rankings.

While I agree with your post, I think you should take another look the grandparent, it seems quite sarcastic.

We have our own ideologically blinded proponents espousing the supposed advantages of private vs public education in my country, with the difference that private schools are funded using the same means as public schools, they all get a set amount of money per student. It is now quite common to go to "free schools", these schools are allowed to profit from public funds and have both a large incentive to fudge the grades in order to make themselves look more attractive and an incentive to cut down on staff. They can get away with cutting staff because the free schools tend to attract the better students and can refuse students that require more attention, such as children with special needs. While Sweden still scores quite high on this test, we have slipped quite a bit, largely because differences between students have increased. Those doing poorly are now doing worse, stuck in schools where few of the students are doing well. This of course coincides with segregation in general being on the rise in this once-egalitarian country, but the free schools are certainly a major factor.

He's more worried about being extradited to the US, and while politicians here say that won't happen and I sort of think that would deal a PR blow both to Sweden and the US, I don't blame him for thinking so considering how much Sweden currently kowtows to every whim of the US. Obama was here only last month after what was practically fawning love-letter from our prime minister to his idol, it was branded by our foreign minister (known for acting as a spy for the US embassy during right-wing government negotiations after the 1976 elections and for his subsequent close ties to the US) as a "feel-good" meeting. This is no longer the same country where the prime minister (Olof Palme, later assassinated) once condemned the firebombings of Vietnam resulting in US withdrawal of their ambassador.

Err, no, never heard of that. A prisoner can apply for "permission" after serving something like a third of his/her time in prison, and then they can leave prison for up to three days at a time (decided by prison administration, or, as in a recently publicized case, by a central agency on appeal), but I don't think any prisoner gets permission every weekend...

If it knows your position at some point it should still be able to extrapolate your position at a later point, think accelerometer, compass, or even cameras/lasers to build a 3D model of the environment around you and compare it to the map.

Do you seriously believe there is a tangible difference between the Democrats and the Republicans in matters of any consequence? No matter which party is in power, in any country really, capitalists are the ones really in charge by simple virtue of their power to control so much of the economy and their unparalleled resources to drive legislation and influence the media which they own.

Interesting system, I assume the speaker of the house the only one who can introduce legislation? I always assumed that any parliamentary member could introduce legislation, in the Swedish parliament, there are two different ways of introducing legislation, the first being a "proposition", introduced by the government, and the second being a "motion" which can be introduced by any MP or any group of MPs.

What Americans call "corporatism", the rest of us call "capitalism". A capitalist system does not become "socialist" simply because the capitalist-controlled government makes a few concessions in terms of social welfare to avoid an all-out revolution, and a capitalist-controlled government giving profitable "contracts" to private corporations or using taxpayer money to bail out failing private corporations (i.e. enriching a few capitalists using resources collected for common use) is about as far from the definition of "socialism" as you can get.

This all stems out of confusion as to the meaning of the terms "capitalism" and "socialism" which seems quite common everywhere, but especially so in the US. "Capitalism" essentially means that means of production is in the hands of the few, the "capitalists". A hallmark of capitalism is that a minority gains more and more money from interest, rather than work. Socialism, on the other hand, means the means of production is owned by the workers themselves, whether via cooperatives, via a (truly) worker-controlled state, some other means or (more likely) from a combination of these.

A capitalist economy can never truly become a democracy simply stemming from the discrepancy in power between the workers and the capitalists. Capitalists have so much more power than workers by simple virtue of their wealth, that even if completely free and fair elections were guaranteed, the media was in no way influenced by the interests of their owners, and corruption was unheard of (i.e. an ideal fantasy world), capitalists, by virtue of their single-handed control of the means of production can still exert undue influence over society and thus put any democracy out of action by for instance threatening to withhold production of some essential good if their interests are not satisfied.

No, even the US has a real left wing, they're just not represented by any of the two mainstream parties. They are however quite well organized, there are several very good American leftist publications ( http://jacobinmag.com/ being my favorite) and even a daily radio/TV news show that by American standards is certainly quite left-wing (and very good, http://www.democracynow.org/ )