Firstly inneficient does not matter. What matters is : are we above 1 in energy production(i.o.w. the energy produced is above the energy consumed by the process) and that can in some country actually be the case : Brazil for example with sugar cane alcohol. Secondly the "other country do not have enough food" is not a good argument, as we already have *enough* food for an even bigger population, but that food does not reach those famished, (political factors, monetary or economical factors) and food produced in rich country sold cheap to famished country tend to torpedo/destroy the local farming economy in some cases. Furthermore the trick about biofuel is that we are not *removing* carbon from the atmosphere, the trick is that we attempt to replace fossile carbon with carbon from an atmospheric cycle. Those are two different problems. If that's the quality of the discourse at that institute.... Then I understand now why representative tend to ignore those groups.

Ha ha and let me guess: you think you are intelligent.

Man I feel your pain. I was 25 but it still feels like yesterday.

Suffering leads to hate. So let's not greet the aliens with big lasers.

Indeed! Many people forget that, and of course you want to try your new pristine towel right away, and then it's a disappointment.

They are only mostly in circulation. Pretty much all retailers have some place at checkout to stick your unwanted pennies, and most people won't even bother to bend over to pick one up off the ground any more. Some people have been known to throw them in the nearest trash can. I tend to solve the problem by using my bank card for all purchases.

I think the basic problem is that getting rid of them would require an act of Congress. That's a place filled with old guys who fondly remember using pennies to pay for bottled cokes back in the '50's.

I can somewhat vouch for this. I went to Holland on a spur of the moment business trip last summer. While pretty much everyone there takes credit cards, they all have to be chipped. Of course with 1 day notice for the trip, I didn't have time to acquire such a card. My only salvation was that some of the currency-exchanging bank ATMs (particularly in the train stations) would take my magstripe Visa bank debit card.

As an aside, I was also pretty startled by the amount of English knowledge there. I think I was hampered by knowing only English in exactly 2 places the whole month. I even had a train station panhandler switch right to English when I tried to fob him off because I didn't understand his pitch. I was tempted to say "No Habla Englez", but he probably knew Spanish too. :-(

I feel the same. I hate those fluffy soft towels that make you feel like you have a thin layer of oil on you. BTW, I think new towels are washed in softener before they are sold.

US card can be more or less copied at will and have no security whatsoever. In which case you can copy the card, leaving the user thinking he still has it and will not report it stolen, and using pads, or social engineering or plain peeking, get the pin. results : since there is no encryption chip and the card can be copied, the ONLY security is the pin. With encrypted chip the additional security is the encrypted chip is far harder to copy.

Just a guess.

we could have lawful access... that we're prohibited from getting because of a company's technological choices.

Now you know how the public feels when they want to make fair use of some video on a DVD or Bluray.

Never use a softener for towels. It makes them hydrophobic.

The good news is, on X11 platforms, anyone can write their own lock screen program.

The bad news is, on X11 platforms, anyone can write their own lock screen program.

Interesting. I took you up on that challenge, and even a simple Googling of Finland Recession tells me Austerity has been a nightmare for them.

Hit 1 title: "Finland: Double-Dip Recession or Depression?"

Hit 2 title: "Finland's Economy is headed for a 'perfect storm'"

Hit 3 title: "Finland Economy falls back into recession", digest: "Finland entered its third recession in six years, preliminary data showed, as government efforts to halt debt growth collided with the longest ..."

My personal favorite, the title of hit 7: "Pro-austerity Finland falls into triple-dip recession"

Yeah. Gotta get me some of that in my country!

...and its not like it was a secret this was going on at the time, and only coming out now. Everyone knew these countries were lying, and still let them in with a wink and a nod (unless of course that country happened to be majority Muslim, in which case the rules were applied stringently, but that's another rant for another day). So countries like Germany do not really have a right to act "Shocked, Shocked!" about it now when its convenient for them to do so.

The only thing particularly special about Greece is that they happen to be the weakest member, so all the crap gets dumped on them first.

Exactly. That's why I said their current middle ground isn't working. The United States started out in that same wishy-washy decentralized manner with the Articles of Confederation. After about 12 years it was clear to everyone that it wasn't working, and the Constitution was written which created a stronger central authority. The EU is most likely eventually going to have to either go that direction, or disband.