EU Parliament tried to do something about Berlusconi, but the parties on the right blocked all declarations on the subject.

Who did you vote?

The summary doesn't mention that Patria builds military ordnance. Those patches are meant for soldiers, not civilians (though civilian models might be forthcoming). Imagine how useful that patch would be on the field. It weights less than GPS/radio units, it's easier to wield etc.

When people mention that this is akin to Star Trek-military uniforms, they are completely right. This is for the armed forces.

In other words, they have the money invested, probably in low-risk form as we are talking of hundreds of years. It isn't bound to be melting away in a few moments :)

Banks often move money to gold in times such as this, and I'm sure banks (being smart players as they are!) are doing just this. This is why the market price of gold has gone up lately, even though historically it always averages on the same price.

But as mentioned, that money is held by Trust, probably just so that the company can not use the money for operating costs. The company itself can still collapse, while the Trust would be bursting in money. I wonder what would happen to the funds then?

The oldest company in the world reached well over 1400 years before it fell to hard times. Link. Other old companies can be found here.

And even if we were to accept your argument of losing money over long-term (which history has shown to be false, even during turbulent times such as these), the value of gold has stayed fairly same for most of the human existence.

However, I'm not sure about the chances of getting resurrected, but that's a whole other subject right there.

There are expections. Lots of them. However, the ones you mentioned are rather easily explained, and ones to which I can most probably find comparisons within other nations.

Croatia and Western Balkans are not members of EU, and the situation is similar to how Canadians and Mexicans are (I assume) handled differently at the border of the United States. Norway and Iceland are part of Nordic Union, which has worked toward Nordic integration till late 40s (as I recall). As the Nordic states that are members of EU have heavy ties to the non-members, it would have been unappeasable to cut these ties - particularly as (as one Norwegian mentioned me) the non-members are nations of good standing, who in effect have to change their own laws as not to be cut out from their brothers, thus making them "EU-states with no representatives". Anyway, the Sweden/Norway border would be impossible to patrol, so better not even to try. And Iceland is so small that it doesn't really weight much.. to one direction or another.

The Sweden/Finland thing is just about taking care of local laws. Don't American states have different limits for what's acceptable and what not? Something about "border controls" is well illustrated that the towns of Tornio and Haparanda have merged together, to the point that the towns are usually discussed as one entity, and are often administered as such. The border is apparently next to impossible to detect in nature, as jogging roads etc. criss-cross the border.

And don't security get tightened in parts of America now and again? And as I understand, in China (and maybe in Russia?) you need your passport even when you travel from province to province (or state to state) as a citizen.. though I might be mistaken.

You are talking of EU directives. What you say is true, but there are also so-called community laws; where community law and state law are at odds, the EC-law takes precedence. A case in Germany has shown that community law overrides even constitutional laws of the member states. Link. The directives are something else.

In this case, Schengen is something else entirely. You have to implement the criteria before you are allowed to join (it's not tied to membership of EU, though membership requires you make an effort to join Schengen as well). Thus there are no half-assed implementations.

Also, while I am not familiar with American system, I somewhat suspect that Washington, California, New Mexico and Florida don't have completely similar practises concerning borders and airports as well. The TSA staff aren't trained in one central location, after all (or are they?).

I would like to introduce you to a thing called the "Schengen Area". Wikipedia (the Internet Encyclopaedia that's always right) says this about Schengen area;

It can be found here.
As Schengen is an EU-project with inclusion of additional countries due to earlier agreements, we can talk about "EU Airports". Also; EU might not be a state, but it's a confederation (de facto, if not de jury), no matter how certain people would like to claim otherwise.

It probably is 70-90% in certain age groups. The biggest file-sharers would be people without money and with good computer skills. This means mostly people under 25, as older people have less need to obtain their entertainment illegally. After all, to get the population to 90% file-sharers, it means that grannies and tottlers both would have to take part!

As far as the usability of the report goes... even as we can assume that 1176 people is big enough group (apparently with around 5% margin of error), they basically tweaked every possible figure upwards. Instead of 33 million users of Internet, let's say 40 million (I'm sure there's official records for this), people will lie, so let's adjust to that (why would people lie in anonymous poll?) and lastly, YOU DON'T SHORTHAND THE +/- PART INTO POSITIVE AND ADD TO THE RESULTS.

Not to mention that some of the sourced research was reported wrong. The same author, but different funding and parametres.

Just want to point out that I was able to read "proper" sentences that weren't prepared for me beforehand when I was 8. I was only slightly slower than my peers (I'm a product of Finnish school system).

Point is; being able to read is not the most important thing about school. Sure, it's a basic skill, but so is hand-coordination (which along with alpabets was one of the most important things the previous year) and basic maths, how to survive in nature etc.

"IMHOTEP - Because you know it lasts"

Any excuse not to hit the gym (or put any effort to stay in shape). "I can't help it, it's in the genes", "I can't help it, I'm sick"!

Maybe so, but eating two large pizzas for lunch isn't actually going to help.

Like they say on the net; if you're fat, don't try to sugarcoat it - because you'll just end up eating that too.

I still say he used a typewriter. Just because he could have done it easier, doesn't mean he didn't do it the manly route, Slashdot-style!

"Sorry love, seems like I snuffed it, lol. Try 2 take care of the kidz!"

I'm a Finn, so naturally my surroundings differ largely from yours - but don't apartment buildings have a special storage area just for bikes (and baby strollers)? Now that I have said that aloud, it occurs to me that for those to exist, you would need the architect to consider such things and the inhabitants to have suitable trust for each other to store their bikes in a common room. It may well be that neither of these happen in New York, but what would I know?

I was not sure if you said what you did in jest.. I read it more like "biking is all very well, but it does not have any use other than as a hobby". I bike to work (when it's reasonably warm) few times a week, but on the other hand the bike road is well marked and I only have to stay in the traffic for only few kilometres. What I know of NYC, this would not, of course, be the case for you.

But everything was to be taken in good spirits. I'm sorry if I came across as rude.

You are apparently not aware of child trailers? Some models have space for two kids and even for one or two shopping bags.

They're surprisingly light, and if you own a mountain bike, you should be able to handle one of these.