The Electronic Frontier Foundation's take on it.
What puzzles me is how is the NDA supposed to threaten other downloaders. They ought to take lessons from a despot on how to make an example, usually public hangings are public for a reason. The NDA is clearly there to keep a lid on their activities, because drawing the spotlight is bad for them.
You're right. Linguistically Finnish is totally unrelated, for example Swedish and Russian are closer to each other than Finnish is to either of them. However, Finland shares the same mix of politics, economics, culture and religion with other Nordic countries, which is distinct from other parts of Europe and the world.
I just wish they'd just get over it and go back home instead of trying to relive it over and over again.
Lessons of WWII? Europeans learned there there is no "ism" worth fighting over. The Yanks learned that sending their kids abroad to kill foreigners over the bogeyman du jour is good and something to be proud of. Strange how those bogeymen keep appearing. "Serving." "Protecting our freedom". Yeah right, those Iraqis were threatening US freedoms real bad, worth killing 100 000 civilians over.
Proud for what, being gullible? You weren't repelling an invasion, just serving narrow interests.
With a first past the post electoral system (one representative per constituency) you'll never get a powerful third party.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting
Iraq did not start a war against the USA. The US invaded Iraq on false pretenses, without a declaration of war. It broke international laws in doing so, and when a western democracy blew the whistle on it we got Freedom Fries. Hamburgers ought to be called gulliburgers in the rest of the world.
"Most westernized democracies" - stop deluding yourself. It's basically the USA, the UK and Canada.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation
Those barriers are called a first past the post electoral system. With proportional representation you'd have a completely different political scene. Same goes for electoral colleges - you should be able to elect your president directly if you want to call yourself a democracy.
Then you probably came across the h2ome yacht.
Same old story: find a design, pare it down, make it white, call it your own.
I love the obsession with "socialism" in the US. Forget about commies and pinkos, here come muslims and socialists. Oooh, next Hollywood nightmare scenario: Socialist Muslims! That would scare the pants off you.
You know, Switzerland and other "socialist" European countries have strict belief in private property. If you Yanks would be able to handle the thing called nuance, you'd realize there are shades of gray.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/magazine/03european-t.html?pagewanted=all&_moc.semityn.www
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model#Overview
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhenish_model
What I'm thinking is the cost of lunch vs. an online source control system annual subscription.
"The Slashdot user known as bbn has a
Please don't tar us all with the same brush. USA != west, and establishment != the people. The middle east is also not the only region getting US special coup d'état treatment - see Chile, Bay of Pigs etc.
If you follow western media, you do read about Saudi & women. In fact very recently.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18422642
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18571193
"Almost never happens
On what planet? Numerous studies show women getting paid less doing the same work and having the same training and experience
Personal experience confirns - almost straight out of uni myself with nontech degree and female colleague with maths degree, doing the same technical work, I got paid better. Could not understand why.
Oleg Kononenko, Don Pettit, Andre Kuipers, Gennady Padalka
Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long. -- Howard Kandel
