is it ok?

Yes, it's fine now. It was by the time my last post went through.

Ja Tim, wie sachst du.

What does this mean?

Yeah, I'd like to know that too. I think it might be supposed to be German, but it's not a German I can understand.

Do enlighten us, Zoe!

I'd love to see all the Buffistas' bookmark lists

To amuse Noumenon, I will voluntarily disclose that most of my fandom links, subcategorized of course, are housed in a folder called "Slavish Worship".

Not much to say about GDP and GDR and DPRK and other abbreviations. Except, serendipitiously, that the US armed forces are notorious for silly abbreviations and acronyms, as spice for their regular jargon.

Defense spending for NATO countries as percentage of GDP & per capita

source doc, NATO BURDENSHARING AFTER ENLARGEMENT

moonlit, just out of curiosity, do you have any stats on the size of the population of the US (and territories) vs Germany, and the area of the US (and territories) vs Germany?

Germany,
Area:total: 357,021 sq km, water: 7,798 sq km, land: 349,223 sq km
Area - comparative: slightly smaller than Montana
Land boundaries:total: 3,621 km
border countries: Austria 784 km, Belgium 167 km, Czech Republic 646 km, Denmark 68 km, France 451 km, Luxembourg 138 km, Netherlands 577 km, Poland 456 km, Switzerland 334 km
Coastline:2,389 km

Population: 83,251,851 (July 2002 est.)
Ethnic groups: German 91.5%, Turkish 2.4%, other 6.1% (made up largely of Serbo-Croatian, Italian, Russian, Greek, Polish, Spanish)
Religions: Protestant 34%, Roman Catholic 34%, Muslim 3.7%, unaffiliated or other 28.3%
Government type: federal republic
Administrative divisions: 16 states (Laender, singular - Land); Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bayern, Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Hessen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Niedersachsen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Saarland, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein, Thueringen

Military branches: Army, Navy (including naval air arm), Air Force, Medical Corps, Joint Support Service
Military manpower - availability: males age 15-49: 20,854,329 (2002 est.)
Military expenditures - dollar figure: $38.8 billion (2002)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 1.38% (2002)

United States
Area: total: 9,629,091 sq km, land: 9,158,960 sq km, water: 470,131 sq km,
note: includes only the 50 states and District of Columbia
Area - comparative: about half the size of Russia; about three-tenths the size of Africa; about half the size of South America (or slightly larger than Brazil); slightly larger than China; about two and a half times the size of Western Europe
Land boundaries: total: 12,034 km
border countries: Canada 8,893 km (including 2,477 km with Alaska), Mexico 3,141 km note: US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is leased by the US and thus remains part of Cuba; the base boundary is 29 km
Coastline: 19,924 km

Population: 280,562,489 (July 2002 est.)
Ethnic groups: white 77.1%, black 12.9%, Asian 4.2%, Amerindian and Alaska native 1.5%, native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.3%, other 4% (2000)
note: a separate listing for Hispanic is not included because the US Census Bureau considers Hispanic to mean a person of Latin American descent (including persons of Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican origin) living in the US who may be of any race or ethnic group (white, black, Asian, etc.)
Religions: Protestant 56%, Roman Catholic 28%, Jewish 2%, other 4%, none 10% (1989)
Government type: federal republic; strong democratic tradition
Administrative divisions: 50 states and 1 district*; Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia*, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.

Military branches: Department of the Army, Department of the Navy (includes Marine Corps), Department of the Air Force
note: the Coast Guard is normally subordinate to the Department of Transportation, but in wartime reports to the Department of the Navy
Military manpower - availability: males age 15-49: 73,597,731 (2002 est.)
Military expenditures - dollar figure: $276.7 billion (FY99 est.)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 3.2% (FY99 est.)

Is that the sorta thing you were after Cindy?

I don't understand the anti-globalization thing, I must admit. Sounds like a case of rich First World nations saying to the Third World, "We've got ours, so go away and toil in the fields your whole life. You're not bright enough not to be expoited even though our ancestors soon organized and got themselves better lives, so forget those factory jobs and upward mobility and all that, just stay stuck and isolated like you are." Kind of patronizing. Not all local culture is worth preserving--FGM, slavery, corruption--that kind of stuff.

"Anti-Globalisation" is a misnomer, frankly. Anyone with a brain within the "movement" agrees that "Globalisation" isn't the issue - it's the way the global market is structured to enforce free trade on poor, weak countries while building huge tariff barriers around strong, rich ones. To look at it in classical Marxist terms, what we've done is outsource the suffering of the proletariat so it looks, for the most part, like we've abolished serious poverty.

"Anti-Globalisation" is a misnomer, frankly.

In fact, it was the US business press, followed closely by economists, politicians, corporate leaders, and the rest of the mainstream media, who branded the protests, ‘anti-globalisation’. They pointed to unprecedented levels of wealth and production in the advanced countries, recent scientific breakthroughs, and faster, cheaper, more accessible travel (including the new holiday destination of space) and communication, blaming the mass civil disobedience on leaders failing to ‘sell the benefits’ of globalisation. It was a deliberate attempt to undermine the credibility of the protest movement, using ‘globalisation’ to evoke a shared vision of harmonious development, infinite progress and unlimited abundance for all through the power of the world market. It ensured that the protesters concerns were largely dismissed or ridiculed by the mainstream media as a tangle of competing, often conflicting, demands that are not only misguided and unreasonable, but also downright impossible to achieve.

However, the tactic produced some unexpected consequences, almost the opposite of what was intended it seems, thrusting ‘globalisation’ firmly into the public spotlight, entrenching the link between the phenomenon and the worsening of many of the problems of the world, and raising questions about it’s nature, origins, processes, and aims. Rather than painting the protest movement as ignorant, irresponsible, freedom-threatening militants, it opened a ‘can of globalisation worms’, which revealed the increasingly global order as a multi-faceted story involving growing aspirations for things such as sustainable development, international law, and social justice, not just a global economy. It publicised the discrepancies between the professed universal vision and the US-centric practical application, throwing up concerns about imperialism, democracy, environmental destruction, human rights, national sovereignty, and a trilogy of discontents regarding the idea of capitalism, the processes of globalisation, and the behaviour of corporations. It focused attention on the competing conceptions of globalisation and uncovered the lack of academic consensus about virtually all aspects of the phenomenon, engendering a notable, and necessary, increase in globalisation theorising and literature. At the same time, the growing recognition of the widespread inequalities and injustices facing societies around the globe fed into a broader dissatisfaction with the current system, which, in turn, generated increased debate about these concerns within the public discourse.

I don't understand the anti-globalization thing, I must admit. Sounds like a case of rich First World nations saying to the Third World, "We've got ours, so go away and toil in the fields your whole life. You're not bright enough not to be expoited even though our ancestors soon organized and got themselves better lives, so forget those factory jobs and upward mobility and all that, just stay stuck and isolated like you are." Kind of patronizing. Not all local culture is worth preserving--FGM, slavery, corruption--that kind of stuff.

What others have said about "anti-globalization" starting as a corporate propaganda term. It is much more of an anti-corporate dominance movement, the furtherst left end of which is an anti-capitalist movement. It is worth remembering, that the U.S. "globalized" itself by not following the rules we want to impose on poor nations today. We had strong tariffs through most of our history. (In addition to slavery, keeping this going was part of what the Civil War was about.) We violated intellectual rights extensively; that's how we got the steam engine baby. And the more successful third world nations followed this example; Singapore, Tawain, Hong Kong before Britain gave it "back" to China, China itself all used strong protectionism and violation of patent and copyright as tools of development. What is called by the propaganda term of globalization is an imposition of a set of rigged rules the first world has never played by itself. And third world nations won't accept it voluntarily.

As Thomas Friedman says (approvingly on his part but not on mine) "The invisible hand requires the invisible fist".

And I heard Moynihan being glowingly mentioned on another politics program sometime last week and seeing as he certainly seemed well thought of by the Buffistas I wondered if you ('cos you're the one with the tag and all) could point me to a few links on some of the more important/historic or just worth knowing things that he did/said or achieved.

My Moynihan story: I went to a "magnet" high school in New York City. My senior year, 25-30 students went on a trip to Washington DC where we met with various congressmen, senators, undersecretaries, and a Supreme Court Justice (Whizzer White). New York's Senator D'Amato insisted on meeting with us on the steps of the Capitol so he could use it as a photo op. The guy was a bit of a sleeze and came off as choosing his postions entirely for political reasons (by contrast, Sen. Orrin Hatch charmed our pants off. Us liberal NYC school kids didn't agree with much of what he said, but we respected that his beliefs were sincere). D'Amato also kept combing his hair which amused us to no end. Anyway, while chatting with him on the steps, Moynihan walked by. Or, more accurately, staggered by. The guy was plastered. He asked us who we were and we told him. "Oh," he replied with a dismissive hand wave, "yer th kids who're supposed t' be so smaaaart." And he continued on his way.

I think you had to be there.

More reason to have confidence in the U.S. conducting a successful relief effort:

Deal to sell water all wet, critics charge

By RICHARD SISK

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

UMM QASR, Iraq - The U.S. military came up with a solution yesterday for the penniless people of this port town begging for water: Sell it.

Despite general mayhem at distribution points - including knife fights - the Army has struck a hasty agreement with local Iraqis to expedite distribution of water to the roughly 40,000 living here.

Under the deal, the military will provide water free to locals with access to tanker trucks, who then will be allowed to sell the water for a "reasonable" fee.

"We're permitting them to charge a small fee for water," said Army Col. David Bassert.

[link]

This was from April 1, and the daily news is not exacly a bastion of first rate journalism. So this was an April Fools day hoax, right? Please ...

X-Posted from Natter.