M92

Not to mention thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste, heavy metals, biowaste from large trading companies and industry dumped in Somali waters. This case in Cote D Ivoire gives you an idea for the very worst of this dumping. That said the Cote D Ivoire response (a $250m compensation demand) is likely to be a much bigger deterant then piracy. Austal USA is based in Mobile, AL with over a 1000 US employees. How can you fault this? (They also gave me a 49% return through 08-09, sadly other choices didn't do as well).

Hmm interesting to see Rothbard has critiqued the voucher system. I am familiar with much of his work but have never read New Liberty. It seems in the book he says much of what I said in much greater depth. Best thing the government could do for education would be to shred every last regulation on schooling, fire the education boards that pander to teachers unions and leave the choice over curriculum and funding as well as the executive management to local communities and parents who unlike a bunch of bureaucrats actually know what their children need.

Interesting discussion, thanks to all who contributed their thoughts. There is always techonological advancement, it is just a matter of being able to identify where this advancement is and it needn't necesarily be spotting something as large as the next microchip era, in medicines, biotech, communications, nano scale materials the rate advancement is ever accelerating thanks to reguarly improving computer power. I think that is one that is in your control, the rest I agree with though.

20 second search showed this was attempted in Cali back in the 90s. http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Cali..._174_%281993%29 Vouchers are a terrible idea though, ultimately the best voucher and the only fair voucher is the money you actually earn. Furthermore in no way would schools be 'free'. Private schools would face a strict wrath of regulations outlining what they must teach in order to accept the vouchers and standards in these schools would freefall. Also as is the current situation people without young children would still be subdidising others children. After you guys make this revolution then you can make your great leap forward, it worked for maoist China... wait... not it didn't. The solution is quite simple, cancel any and every welfare program that coervicely extracts earned wealth from good people and gives it to dipshits.

That would be an interesting idea but in the old days of F1 there was no sprinklers on the tracks and yet there was plenty of overtaking. What is the true cause of the lack of overtaking? Is it that the $400 million budgets of the big boys are too much for smaller teams, is it due to rules on refuelling, does it have to do with rules that make cars and engines all the same or is it another problem? The cause needs to be found and addressed but the problem sure as hell isn't due to rubber on the racing line.

The sliding in the gymkhana video was much more precise though, in, out and around cones and other obstacles. This was a very cool video though, thanks for posting.

Even with only three stops avg speed is 1/3 of an airplane.

Evolution of the marque's flagship (plus an EB110 that slipped in)

Agree 100%. Whilst there is significant justified discontent in Saudi I think the chance of widespread unrest short term is low. With China post 89 I think the average person puts up with the authoritarian regime because they don't want to upset the constant income growth and development that they've enjoyed. On the other hand Saudi economy seemingly only grows and receeds with the oil price so chances of that I don't think the current regime will be around as long. Lol.

132 strong group of academics, activists and businessmen and other groups calling for constitutional monarchy, expanded female participation in public life and 12,600 have become 'fans' of a planned KSA 'Day of Rage' on March 11. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/artic...5b1c6a29c99.a31 Perhaps the current kingdom will remain beyond the next decade but is certainly a possibility for stormy times in the near future, even minor unrest will drive oil prices up. Based on the demands in the news article I linked 'blowback' might include HIGH oil prices but it hardly seems like there is a radical undertow driving these protests.

Best case if widespread unrest hits KSA would be fear in the markets and a painful spike would hit oil. Worst case if this unrest blows up would be destruction to some oil wells, pipelines, equipment supply chains, tankers, ships and an even bigger increase in oil prices, if this happened the growing voices who started calling for a Libyan invasion when Gaddafi (supposedly) threatened to destroy the oil fields would have even more ammo to work with. If this happens we're all fucked lol.

Unless given press releases to report on major media outlets are nigh on worthless for up to date news esp when the news is a rapidly destabilising country which they have no access to. Maybe one week later they will have the facts but they are never on the ball and will commonly make up shit / latch onto unsubstantiated rumors because they simply cannot launch a Der Spiegel type investigation for each wire they put out. For example: 1. One syndicated article from one of Asia's leading news agencies says Gaddafi's nurse it staying with him, "My mother has not been in touch for a long time. I cannot reach her" her daughter says: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/m...how/7583985.cms 2. A second article is an AFP wire published at almost the exact same time (6hr time difference between India and Aus) THE "voluptuous" Ukrainian nurse US diplomats believe accompanies Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi is about to return home to Kiev, her daughter says. "(Mum) called yesterday. She says that she is in Tripoli," Tatyana Kolotnytska told the daily today. http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/gadda...0-1226012653975 Asia's leading news wire says she is staying, AFP says she is going. Whilst this issue is certainly not on the same level as the allegations of strafing attacks on protestors it shows that even the respected 'main stream media' sometimes doesn't know whats up. I'd like to paraphrase what you said and conclude with this: "If you DO take sources like BBC, Reuters, NPR, AP and others as gospel then there is no point I discussing this matter with you." If you want to know what is going on there are plenty of blogs offering perspectives from the post 'liberated' nations and the current developmetns in rioting nations. They will put you ahead of the ball much better than news wires can.

The properties of steel (thus far) are pretty much set by it's carbon content, the processes it's been put through and the other elements in the steel. For decades there has been steel that is light and strong (HSLA steel) but it is not very ductile which means such steel is no good for resisting crashes and cyclic loading because it fractures easily. I'd be interested to see what is unique about this steel, I don't know how you'd manage to give high strength whilst retaining impact and cyclic strength. Perhaps microscopic flawless structures like nanotubes are alloyed into the steel to increase it's strength which would perhaps avoid these issues arising. One thing I do know however is that this shit will do far more to make cars efficient than any bullshit politicians have dreamed up like ethanol fuels. I also know fullerenes (carbon nanotubes) and graphene are two materials that have such huge potential for commercialisation that they will be the beginnings of new industries the size of the semi conductor industry in the future, there will be foundries and fabless nanotech companies that solve some huge problems we face.

And at night time it might be very distracting. One problem is that I find with cars featuring systems built around screens hard to understand as inevitably the interface for radio, sat radio, cds, sat nav, blutooth, trip computer, air con differs. Not to mention the maps are constantly outdated. There is definitely a need for a company to create an industry standard for the software and interface in car entertainment systems so that whenever someone switches or hires a car they do not have to waste time learning how to program an address, poi or radio station. Cool development though.

Good income by any measure but you'd think for being the central figure of one of the most popular shows in the world with such strong merchandising he'd be taking in more. I found another article: http://www.autotrader.co.uk/EDITORIAL/CARS...famous_son.html