"The stated goal from bin Laden was the destruction of the capitalist monster that is the United States."

This myth persists but is entirely wrong. bin Laden's clearly stated goals were to force the US to remove its military bases from the Holy Lands and have the US end its support for Israel. Nothing more - nothing less.

bin Laden made these comments on many many occasions on the record to respected newspapers. Why Americans refuse to accept what he said and instead make it about bin Laden hating "freedom" or "capitalism" is beyond me.

Always and forever. Politeness goes a long way even in the face of those "screwing you without lube".

Being polite is not hard at all regardless of the situation.

Absolutely right. My American friends would say that I am a far left socialist, whereas my European and Australian friends would consider me centre left.

My Chinese friends cannot understand why I take any interest in politics at all.
 

"... love clapping".

Sounds like any RNC / DNC convention then.

I don't know who will but I hope that it won't be mine and your children (and so do you).

Structural unemployment is indeed a natural consequence of the move from primary to secondary and then from secondary to tertiary economies.

Provide for those who do not neatly fit into the result of the transition and stop demonising unemployment.

I have been to manufacturing centres (we used to call them factories) and I can promise you we do not want them back nor the jobs.

When ever I hear someone talking about the loss of manufacturing jobs, especially no-skill or low-skill jobs, I ask them if they hope their own children will one day work in such a job. They always say no.

Working in a no-skill / low-skill job in a factory is awful. We should not want any part of our labour market filling jobs like those.

No. Universal are arguing that the internal Google system falls outside of the Act.

From the parent-linked article:

"Universal said Googleâ(TM)s private system doesnâ(TM)t count as an official takedown notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and thus it was immune from legal liability. Itâ(TM)s a position that Ira Rothken, Megauploadâ(TM)s attorney, said was preposterous."

Indeed there are some sections of the Act that make it less awful than it would be otherwise.

But my understanding of Universal's in argument in this case is that the internal Google takedown system doesnâ(TM)t count as an official takedown notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and thus Universal is immune from legal liabilityeven if they did "game" the system.

Obviously Megauploadâ(TM)s attorney argues otherwise.

Not better, but cheaper.

When we all stop demanding the cheapest rather than the best, when we start making spending decisions based on criteria other than simply "cheapest", manufacturing may return to OECD economies.
   

Why would trying Usama bin Laden be "in the best interests of Afghanistan"?

He was not an Afghani citizen. He held no public office in that country. He spent time in that country but no one has accused him of committing any crimes against Afghanistan.

Trying bin Laden may have been in the best interests of the United States but no one I know in Afghanistan wanted him tried there or any where else.

I think you may have misunderstood what Chinasmack actually does. Fauna does a great job in translating the popular threads on the mainland China BBSs - latest stories, pictures, videos, and topics that are "hot".

Chinasmack is not a news organisation in any way. Fauna translates what the thread posters said. Chinasmack is not there to "verify" what is being posted but to help outsiders and those without Chinese language skills to understand what is being said / posted on mainland discussion sites.

No one outside of the Baidu management team actually believes that Baidu has anything like an 83% of the search market in China.

Far from illegal in most countries?

No. The majority of the world's countries do indeed have laws preventing the explotation of children in labour, sexually etc.

Yes there are some countries that have lax child protection laws. But the idea that most countries have yet to legislate to protect children is not supported by fact.