Was there a happy dance to do too? I know the need for security, but that borders on the ridiculous. All that is missing is the ctrl-alt-delete key.

I read a few articles showing benefits of intestinal flora transplants from one individual to another. For example, this article discusses how it was shown to ease Parkinson's in certain cases (just the abstract, sorry):

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20927962.600-faecal-transplant-eases-symptoms-of-parkinsons.html

Instestinal flora seems to have become something more scientists are looking into. The make up of the flora seems to have large number if influences. We may find even more surprises as more research happens.

That would be Scala ;) Ada has resemblances to Pascal in certain aspects.

That might be true here, but choices aren't limited to governments. Bad investors, bad management and bad choices in general can burn any project be it government or private.

For the native English speakers that would be 'Cacofonix' :)

You know, if that did hit Earth it would be a case of the sky falling.

There will always be an initial cost, but this is usually paid back in a specied timeframe. My general expectation is that you don't break-even for two years. I also believe that captilism sometimes benefits from a government investment at the right level. In this case the government pays for the general infrastructure, but in doing so allows for competition at the ISP level. Competition prospers, users get choice, business gets to concentrate on service and in general everyone wins.

I believe in general government is good for investing in large scale projects that are deemed to risky for private enterprise, but whose benefits can be leased or licensed out to private business, once the biggest risk factor has been taken care of.

I have a 6 MBit connection, which is good enough for HD video from Netflix.

The only reason I keep it is because, beyond the odd throttling, I don't have cap. If I have to go capped with a higher speed connection, then I need to have 300GB minimum. Its not so much I download that much, but I don't want to be stressing about going over the limit and be gouged.

As for the selection with Netflix in Canada, is you aren't really paying for a US or Canadian account. You are simply paying for Netflix and then getting the selection for the geographic region in which you are currently located. This means if you go on holiday in the USA, then you get the USA content selection and if someone from the USA comes to Canada, then they get the Canadian selection. This aside, I don't know whether the poor selection in Canada is down to Netflix not making the same effort to negotiate the rights or whether it is down to the content companies in Canada just being more difficult.

It should also be noted that AAC is to MPEG4 video, what MP3 is to MPEG1 video.

One thing I always found odd were the personal media payers that could play MPEG4 video, but couldn't play back AAC based tracks.

That may be the case, but it was pushing into a legal gray zone in Russia and eventually, by pressure from the media companies, got shut down.

The problem with Google Music is that it is still US only. Not even in Canada can we make use of it. I will consider Google music the day its availble to me.

The iTunes Music store and, to some extent, Amazon are the only legal options outside of the USA.

I am torn. I want the delux edition, but I want it in white.

Getting the white edition as is makes no financial sense, since once you have added all the extras, including a base game, in the delux edition you are $100 over the price of the black version. Once there is stock I may end up grudgingly getting the black version. I can understand why thy did this, since it is clear which is which, but that doesn't men I like it.

Rant over

True, but part of the reason is that it makes the politics with Israel less complicated. Remember Palestine hasn't even been recognized as a proper country in the UN and is treated more as Israel's back yard or a reserve. Palestine is very much in survival mode and doesn't have much opportunity to develop a stable society. All the politics in the countries around Palestine is just more fuel that Hamas needs to justify its terrorist existence.

I don't claim to know the solution, but the Jewish colonies certainly isn't one of them - quite the opposite really.

In many ways this is why there needs to be a reform to the political system to make it easier to have more than to parties. A binary system is not very realistic, given the variations of view points - sure it is easy to understand, but it means more infighting than there needs to be.

In terms of presidential systems, France may have it better? There you have two rounds, with the second round being dependent on the first. Essentially in the first round you vote for the party you want and if no party gets more than 50%, then the two front runners of the first round go into the second round and you vote for them. The reason I like this is that there should be less risk of a 'lost vote'. Also, the congress would be populated by a clearer variation of view points, based on the various parties. In this scenario the tea party would be able to represent themselves, instead of hampering the GOP, for example.