Apples and oranges. The United States is the only nation on earth that could get away with closed borders and have anywhere near the standard of living we currently enjoy. Even with China's near meteoric economic growth, pulling the US GDP out of the world market would literally kill millions of jobs across the globe. Maybe a trial run is in order? See how China likes the shoe on the other foot?

As others have posted and others sill undoubtedly post, we need more information to give you the recommendation you want. Making some assumptions from your question, it sounds like you want to virtualize your workstation. For full baremetal performance, don't virtualize your primary OS. The technology isn't there yet, but VMWare is making huge strides with their VMView product. Set up properly, you can have CAD running in a virtual machine on a server with a thin client displaying the output with very respectable speeds.

For your application, it sounds like you need something like Virtual PC or VMWare Workstation. Virtual PC comes free with Windows 7 Pro and Ultimate. That's what I use and it allows me to have two or three VMs running XP for testing and/or risky web use. I haven't tried Ubuntu as a VM in virtual PC, but I have an ESXi server running, so I haven't bothered. I'm very happy with my setup, below:

1. Server:
2. • Old HP x8400 workstation that I stuffed with 12GB of RAM and four WD1001FALS striped into one big array
   • - Win 2k8 server for AD and file sharing (64GB primary drive, 2048GB secondary (whatever the max for ESXi is))
   • - Windows Home server for client backups (80GB primary drive, 500GB secondary)
   • - IIS server for local intranet / website testing (80GB drive)
   • - Various XP machines for testing (revert to snapshot is nice!)
   • - Various Linux flavors (Ubuntu desktop/server, Debian servers, etc).
3. Primary Workstation:
4. • Newish Dell XPS 435 that I bought as a refurb for about 50% of retail (thank you slickdeals!)
   • (2 x 60GB Agility 2 SSD in RAID 0 as primary drive, one 500GB Seagate as secondary/scratch disk, 9GB RAM, Nvidia GTX 465, etc)
   • - Windows 7 Ultimate as primary OS
   • - Two Windows XP Pro guests in Virtual PC

There's a lot of technology out there, so you may have to do some fiddling around yourself to see what works for you. It took me a few years to gather all the hardware together and work out how to build the software just right, but it works. I use my main rig for video (kids soccer, family vacations, birthdays, etc), photo slideshows, gaming, developing, etc, so performance was key. My setup isn't top of the line, but something close to bleeding edge while maintaining a budget. Virtualization is a tool. Find something that fits your needs, understanding each product's weaknesses and strengths and you will do just fine.

I imagine that if the guy or his wife or kid were trapped in the house, they would have done something. Since it's just property, they were under no such humanistic constraint. Human compassion has to have limits, or we would go around trying to fix every injustice. So I say, "well done" on calling it right for such a tough situation.

Do some research first before speaking out of your nether regions.

Actually, I say it's bullshit that the investigators don't have a single shred of evidence outside of that encrypted drive that he has child porn. As much as we like to think "the man" is out to get us, the truth is that there has to be something besides that encrypted drive that put this 19 year old in police custody. Internet logs, witnesses, something. That means that the court has a reasonable suspicion that somewhere on that computer is child porn and the only way to have a fair trial is to have as much information as possible. Because this kid isn't cooperating, it is also reasonable to assume that he's hiding something. Shocking, but that's how it works. Whether it's child porn or not, this kid doesn't want the prosecutors to see whatever it is, which means it's very likely illegal. It's not nefarious, it's logic. In the eyes of the court, the only way to resolve the question of child porn possession is to have a look at the computer.

One of these things is not like the other.

Lies! All lies! I have the retail version of Civ IV and it runs on my Win 7 box just fine. I also happen to have an iso of the DVD for Civ IV that works just fine as a backup. Regurgitating FUD doesn't mean as much as real world experience.