A person that automatically believes the NSA is lying is really not much different than a person that automatically believes the NSA is telling the truth.

The NSA has lied about many things regarding the Snowden case, and Snowden hasn't (as far as I know). Critical thinking should help you figure out which is more likely to be a reliable source now.

No one's claiming that _everything_ that the NSA says is a lie, that's a straw man. However, since they have repeatedly been shown to have lied in the past, you'd be stupid to treat them as anything but completely unreliable.

Now that the US has taken action, other countries are starting to investigate their local officials. Even if all American charges are dropped (and it looks like there are at least a few with sufficient American ties to be prosecuted regardless) there will be plenty of other countries with their own jurisdictions that are going to jump on the bandwagon.

The prime reason why the FIFA corruption scandal has come to the forefront is nothing to do with the US. It's essentially about UEFA (the European football association) actually making enough of a stink about it (enough for some to actually start talking about leaving FIFA), and (more importantly) the Swiss legislature talking about forcing organisations to disclose payments (bribes). The US has essentially zero to do with it, as the US has essentially zero power in world football.

Here's what you can do: butcher your own meat. People do it every day, though you sound much too lazy and entitled and whiny to do anything that might involved getting your hands dirty. Which probably also rules out you growing your own vegetables - you might have to clean your fingernails afterwards, so you won't soil your keyboard when typing your next woe-is-me rant.

Yeah.... that works well in the middle of a big city. Do you know how much is actually eaten daily in a big city? If everyone were to individually try to grow their own vegetables, and rear their own meat in a city of 10 million, it'd be instant chaos, and probably at least double the carbon output of the city.

Mass production works better, generally, that's why we do it.

1) Move somewhere you like.

And if everyone "moves somewhere they like"? You can't solve bad places by just saying "move".

2) Start your own company. Hire people

Which people? The people I was going to hire already started their own company. There aren't any employees any more in your utopia.

ps. I do butcher some of my own meat, and grow some of my own vegetables, but I'm lucky to live where I do.

Britain made a lot of promises during the war, it failed to keep many of them in a timely manner (or at all). One is forced to wonder if they had any intention of upholding the promises in the first place.

Britain was in massive debt after the war, and in bad shape (sugar rationing ended in 1953, meat rationing ended in 1954, nearly 10 years after the end of the war). It was also coping with colonies left right and centre wanting to declare independence. Essentially, Britain wasn't in much of a position to deal with a lot of promises made during the war.

We still managed to start the Suez war, though, I guess (and that went really well).

I think you're confused. If you've got consumers in a country, and you're selling to them, you've got to abide by local consumer laws. Sorry, that's how it is. It doesn't matter where the company is based.

Trying to get some tiny shop in Hong Kong to comply with the morass of EU legislation, and whether it's worth going after them if they don't is an entirely different question. But if you're a multinational, and try to sell out of somewhere to the EU without adhering to the regulations, you will get slapped down.

Now, the trouble is that Google isn't actually charging for anything, which makes it a little less clear. However, they are making profit by people in the EU using their service, though, and so (in my opinion) should obey the laws that apply to those people, and the local companies.

one of the main reasons Concorde became less profitable after that was because a lot of the services clientèle were killed in the 9/11 attacks.

The 3,000 people killed in 9/11 represent about 0.15% of the populations of New York and London. As comparison. 42,000 people were killed in car accidents in 2001.

That's arbitrary. It'd make just as much sense grouping animals by what colour they are. Crocodiles used to be warm blooded, too, so when did they switch from being dinosaurs to reptiles?

I didn't have a PC when Fallout 1 and 2 were released, I just had a PS1. I know it's nice to be able to afford everything, but most of us couldn't, and made choices.

JRPGs are awesome, too.

If I ever got free reign in building a house, I'd tessellate the rooms being octagons and squares.

What, just me?

My general sense is that pretty much old everything is big. But what if fossils expanded with time?

Not really true. The number of different species that have lived on the earth, it would be astonishing if the largest species to ever have lived had evolved recently... but this is exactly what has happened.

Also, there are some things (I hesitate to call them species) like the Coelacanth which have stayed very similar in form over hundreds of millions of years.

Large animals get more press. I'd guess they also fossilise better and are easier to find.

Regarding large insects and arachnids.... no one is completely certain, apart from the fact that there was a much higher oxygen content in the atmosphere during the Cambrian, allowing larger sizes. This does not explain everything though (but what does?).

Well, dinosaurs were divided into two main groups, the lizard-hipped and the bird-hipped dinosaurs. Birds evolved from the lizard-hipped dinosaurs, and the bird-hipped dinosaurs died out.

Reptile is a catch-all term that doesn't really mean anything. Crocodiles are much more closely related to birds and dinosaurs than they are to any other reptiles (so should probably be grouped with birds rather than lizards and snakes), and extinct "reptiles" like dimetrodon are more closely related to humans than they are to any extant reptiles.

They did a lot of good research, but you don't do heavy metal in Dobly.

The difference being that Age of Sail colonists could live in pretty much the same condition as the one they left. On Mars the "colonists" will be living underground and will never again feel fresh air in their lungs or sun on their skin. They will be dependent on the next supply mission or they will die.

My god, I can't believe you actually posted this on slashdot. I'd guess that 99% of those reading this will be ideally suited for life on Mars after having spent the last few years in mom's basement.

Nascar Race? You mean because they "raise" the flag and sing the National Anthem before the race and usually launch fireworks after it? Nearly every sporting event in the US starts with raising the flag and singing the National Anthem.

Yeah... that's the thing. Singing the anthem at each and every tiny sporting event looks really odd and jingoistic to most of the rest of the world. We don't do anything like that at our sporting events in England unless they're particularly noteworthy (FA cup final, etc), and even then it's sometimes booed, or mostly ignored.

Crime is going down in just about _all_ western countries. The leaded gasoline correlation does not apply in recent years.