Europe can at least look to Russia for a foretaste of what may come, since Russia has a) a falling population, b) of which almost 20% are Muslim already and c) a government which is decidely unfriendly to its Muslim inhabitants. No, Russia's situation is different: A questionable democracy and economic success fueled by high prices for fossil fuels fo
Highest suicide rate of any 1st-world area in the world (probably highest overall too but don't have those stats handy). That was a little too far out of the window I think: WHO stats Most European suicide rates (I looked up Germany, France, Italy, Spain and
The Turkish situation in Germany I think is one that raises some concern. But that could very well be the issue of children of immigrants not being granted citizenship too (i.e. it may not be related to them being Muslim). There are mechanisms now, but probably they're not easily reachable enough. German citizenship still is a controversial issue thou
I agree that Sweden is very secular. The issue isn't whether Muslims would force their religion onto others. I don't think that's the worry. The issue is that Secular Europeans, for good or bad, are decreasing in population at a fairly alarming rate and that Islamic immigrants are representing a fast growing percentage of the population. These issues
Not to be too critical, but I notice you use the EU when it supports your assertions, and then decry it when it does not. No. I'm just willing to show both sides of the coin, while some others seem to prefer to throw "black!" or "white!" at each other's head.
You guys lost 3,000 in the WTC and you're almost tearing yourselves apart. Try losing 10's of millions and almost your entire economic base to a fascist war and then maybe you'll begin to appreciate the virtues of a little "consensus". While the statement in itself is a little excessive I think it still raises a valid point. I think the reluctancy of
Japan is doing great. Japan has some problems under the hood though. Only recently they managed to put some serious reforms together after about 10 years of economical stagnation. And the average Japanese woman has less than 1.4 children (if I can trust the figures I found). <TABLE cellpadding=8 width="95%" align=center bgColor=#FFF394 class=
Why aren't the Europeans dominating the car industry, computer industry, food industry, entertainment industry, pharmacuetical (sp) industry, and so forth? In fact, why are they barely represented in these industries? The EU is at a disadvantage compared to the US because we are much less united than you are when it comes to political structures, lan
You say SAP is the 4th largest software company. Sure. But 13 of the top 15 are American. Why is that? Europe only has 1 of the top 5 largest auto companies and shares another with the US (Daimler Chrysler). Why is that? While having the biggest corporations doesn't hurt, I don't think it is everything that counts. I'll take engineering as an e
You have the Christian Democratic Union. This is closest to the American democratic party (left of center). Only on some issues. E.g. the majority of CDU opposes abortion and would probably have made much different politics than Schroeder (SPD) did regarding the war in Iraq. They do have serious support from big business and usually are in power where
A few issues with strong opinions on the different sides in the EU: Immigration, future of the EU in general (further integration?, Turkey? etc.), social security (with demographics playing a huge role), foreign policy (UK & friends vs. "Old Europe" to make it short), abortion (hmm, might sound familiar?) and - last but not least - "how much money to transfer from one person to another" (isn't that what many things are about in the end?).
A question of how much money to transfer from one person to another isn't diversity IMO. Well, then it's not diversity for you. Nonetheless there are a lot of different opinions from the far left to the far right - and the political parties that represent them. <TABLE cellpadding=8 width="95%" align=center bgColor=#FFF394 class="mb-Body-Quote
extermination of Christian references during the Christmas season in Britain I heard about it, and I think it's moronic. But tell me one thing: Isn't "Happy Holidays" the official formula instead of "Merry Christmas" in the US for the same "reason" basically? Or is that a misconception? Europe isn't doomed. We're having problems and challenge
Nearly everyone is thinking about themselves or "issues" they care about. Funny, that's common prejudice about US Americans in Europe... Europeans travel to other European countries which is akin to Americans traveling
Hmm, something makes me think that Brad simply got out of bed with the wrong foot today...
Tell me this: If Europeans are so worldly, then why are they so politically similar? They aren't. Not at all. I don't know how much personal experience with Europe and in Europe you have, but saying that we're so politically similar is really funny with regards to what's going on over here. I guess that European political diversity simply isn't an int
I think the ISG report is the most rational summary about Iraq that I've seen in the last years. I'm not convinced that removing Saddam really changed much overall (other than his face appearing less often in the news) but that job is done anyway and I don't miss him. The sooner the troops are withdrawn now (or concentrated on really important matters) the better I'd say. Everything else will just lead to more lives and more billions spent for little effect. Iraq isn't going to turn into a notew
O G San: "I thought of this little vignette this week when I heard that the European Union is considering lifting its ban on arms sales to China, which was imposed following the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989." Being a German citizen I strongly disagree with the point of view of my own chancellor and his good friend Jacques Chirac that the weapons emba
kingbee: "am i in a timewarp? or was 11/2/04 (the day before this handsomely illustrated article was posted) not the day on which exitpollology and the validity of information derived from it was again--hopefully for the last time--demonstrated to be possibly as credible as syndicated astrology forecasts?" I'm a little surprised as well by the faith in po
"Ah yes, it's always the jews fault isn't it?" I didn't say that, nor did I want to express that. It's clearly not "the fault of the jews". This would only be another generalisation and I think we already had enough. I've been reading here since the beginning, I saw a lot of interesting and well done postings, a lot of rubbish and childish arguments as well (the upcoming election
"There's no love lost between Semites (Palestinians included) and Arabs." IMHO the Israel-Palestine conflict is THE key subject in the problems between the Western and the Arabic World anyway. The Palestinians (and the numerous arabic people expressing solidarity with them) feel treated unjust, to say the least, and are angry with Israel and the US as Israels major ally and protector. This is a primal source of hate against the US and what it
I'd really like to see "one of us" (western world) in a traditional, muslim, arabic country with the typical background, education and access (or not) to medias. I'm not sure whether revolting against the government would be our first concern... I think our primary objective should be to encourage and support the transition in these countries to more modern and open societies,
a little *bump* to bring it up again on a working day...
It would be nice to have a list of the exact effects of the chosen difficulty levels on the AI - just like the one that exists for GalCiv. Could anyone elaborate, please?
I sent you a mail.