I was happy with my pre-paid t-mobile when I visited Canada. I had no problems with coverage at all.

So do I. And that is the reason I am happy to donate money as long as the organization use it wisely.
There are a lot of NGOs who do a great job even, if they are paying some of their people. And working for one of them is usually a big pay cut from what one would get on private companies, so you will get committed people even if you are paying them a salary.
Of course, there are the ones with 50% overhead as well as scammers, but that is our job as donors, to do a decent research before giving any money.

So, my question to you is: Can you volunteer full time, half time? Specially right know, who can afford to leave their jobs for weeks to go to Haiti to volunteer full time?
10% overhead is a very reasonable figure if we cannot bother to get our butts out of the couch and go there ourselves.

I agree that the media does this all the time and it was not different for the H1N1

That said... Maybe in the US we did not see a difference in the death numbers, but my dad and step mom are doctors in Brazil and it was a lot different there.

We do not really have a flu season. We do not even get vaccines for it. It would make no sense (and we do have a pretty comprehensive vaccine program, all free, btw). Not that we don not have flu, it is just not as dramatic as it it here. And you never hear of people dying from it, unless they are very debilitated already.

The H1N1 killed people there that nobody expected to be a victim of the flu. Young people, pregnant women. That was the difference. Plus, many of my friends here in the US got it, and although it was not fatal for any of them, it was so painful that I would not have wanted to go through that myself or worse, have my 3 year old in horrible pain for a week. I got him vaccinated with the mist (individual doses do not have as may preservatives) and now that it is widely available I got one for myself.

I would say we are pretty consistent:
in our teens, we want the bad-cool-cute boy
in our 20s, we want the hip-probably-gay guy
finally, in our 30s we come to our senses and discover the geeks....

As long as they provide an alternative access to the same info, what is the problem?
Or are they going to close stairways because some people cannot use them?

That would work perfectly if we had an educated population and honest ways of communicating information. Well, we don't. And it is only getting worse.

Capitalism? The guy has NSF funding....

"Once full, Obsorb floats to the surface, where it can be skimmed off with something as simple as a coffee filter. After that the pollutants can be retrieved and the glass can be reused hundreds of time. Nanoparticles of iron can also be added to convert TCE or PCE (another volatile organic compound) into harmless substances. As a low cost form of cleanup, swelling glass could provide site remediators with yet another in the growing list of non-conventional cleanup tools along with lactate, vitamin B-12, and even cattails." http://cleantechnica.com/2010/01/11/swelling-glass-cleans-polluted-water-like-a-sponge/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cleantechnica%2Fcom+(CleanTechnica)

If you come under a J visa, it usually means your country is sponsoring you. And that means you cannot obtain an immigrant visa for at least 2 years after you got your degree. That is the agreement the US has that will guarantee the return of the students to their country, at least for a while, with a few exceptions. about the US citizenship.... it will take you at least 7 years and that is the best possible case scenario. I could as well take 20.

Top-down models? I do not know the Chinese system but I would guess it is pretty much "top-down"as well. Maybe that is a problem but not the main reason US schools are failing. I think the main reason, is self-indulgence, parents who are not interested in their kid's education and expect the school will do the entire job alone. That will never happen. Behavior, attitude towards life and education comes from home, not from schools. Plus, a culture where we praise criminals who write songs about beating people up or worse (and make a lot of money from it), professors who are paid crap so the school can pay millions to football coaches, I can go on and on... but the bottom line is: if people do not value education, individually or as a nation, the system will fail.

Exactly. I am finishing my PhD in about a month. A few years ago, I have actually repaid my home country about 80k of my scholarship so far, so I could stay in the US.
Now that I am done, I am looking for a Job but I need to get a work permit that is almost impossible, especially with the cuts on research funding. So, although I want to stay, own a house, have an American born son and a husband with an H1B, I will have the choice of: staying at home on an H4 that does not allow me to work, go back or just do consultancy outside the US. Did I heard China is hiring?

Maybe we should start a club or something...

oh, do we?

it is automatic... What could go wrong?