The primary mission of the very first FTL flight should be to fly exactly the distance required to record the remaining missing episodes! :-)

For some reason we (as in the western world) decided that the proper response to a paramilitary attack on the Twin Towers was a full scale military assault on the entire muslim world rather than a repeat of the (proved) successful Marshal Plan response of pumping in massive amounts of capital into the disadvantaged countries. The latter solution would have wiped out the roots of muslim terrorism (poverty and hopelessness) but we chose to reinforce just those feelings instead. What the hell do we do now?

Ah.. The inherent virtues of our adaptable western society save the day...

Earlier in the week BSA representatives here in Sweden all but admitted that the figures for Sweden were made up.
http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror (sorry, link in Swedish only)
They used a combination of general estimates and figures for other countries. No Swedish businesses were involved in the study at all...

How come people keep confusing capitalism with democracy? Capitalism may have finally won over most of it's competing ism:s but democracy is still in a lot of trouble. That fight is raging all over the globe.