But they can also restrict them. In medicine, where you're dealing with single inventions that cost a fortune to develop, the net effect is probably encouragement. In software, where you're dealing with combining lots of inventions together and development costs can be much lower, the net effect is probably restrictive. Software shouldn't have invention patents at all,

The US motor industry is dying because it's spent decades making SHIT cars that NOBODY OUTSIDE THE US WANTS TO BUY.

The Beeb's credible enough to me. And if you want a news source completely apart from the "Western World", there's Al Jazeera.

I agree that most countries have WAY too many laws. But this isn't due to some kind of political agenda. It's because whenever something happens, the population and the media scream at the government to "do something about it". Adding new laws is always understandable and justifiable when considering an individual bill, but the aggregate effect is negative.

I notice that the other four EXCEEED Fox by a slight margin. The divide is honestly about 50:50 - if you consider Fox "Conservative" and the rest all "Liberal", then that's about equal to the political beliefs of the USA. People are simply watching the news that they feel is in accord with their political beliefs.
Not to mention you overlooked the possibility of biases in watching TV news versus getting news by papers or on the internet.

Hahaha. Alaska? Melting Tundra? The one that can not support the weight of oil pipe-lines? Check this pictures of Siberian roads, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Highway, http://www.pixyard.com/_Most_dangero...n_road_33_pics (they are not able to pave them with asphalt, guess why?

Take a look at this:
http://netenergy.theoildrum.com/node/5500
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5945678/
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/Hubbert/wwf1976/print.htm

http://www.albartlett.org/interviews...interview.html
http://www.albartlett.org/books/esse...ponential.html
http://www.albartlett.org/articles/art2000jan.html

On the point of ever increasing population (which generates ever increasing consumption rate), Look "Arithmetic, Population and Energy" Documentary movie, lecture from Physics Phd, Professor Emeritus on unrelenting exponential function, especially Part 3. If you do not want to read any of those links, then please do watch Part 3 of this video, it is only 10 minutes of your time, but at the end you will start wondering.


Hmmm, it sounds rather familiar. Oh, I know:
and Ring a bell? It's from wikipedia: Decline_of_the_Roman_Empire

Comunistic Chine now owns ~25% of US Treasury Securities, ~868 billion dollars. They instituted birth controll to suppress public costs, thought their citizents to refrein from buying on credit, and 80-90% of the population goes to bed well before 22h (10PM). When there was socialisam in Serbia (not a comunisam, mind you!) 1 police officer was able to controll at least 1.000 of football (soccer) fans on the stadium, he was so feard (1:1000). Now, in democratic and capitalistic world of gread and criminals, even 1:10 does not help, producing even dead police officers. Until 1980-1990, just before the Yugoslav War, we hardly had any crime (apart from gready and corrupt politicians that is). Most of our criminal oriented citizens were operating in Western Europe countries. Now, you can even get killed for fancy cell(mobile) phone. That is what bothers me, decay of moral and honesty, not political organization of the state. In China they publicaly hang their corumpted politicians and business man, and confiscate their entire property. Imagine that every politician in US "on the take" is gone, and the rest are affraid to take bribe (sorry, contribution), so only those interested in prosperity of ordinary people become politicians. Wouldn't that be MUCH better?

Fall is iminent if nothing changes, especialy in USA since you are most developed and you spend per capita 30 times more than it is necessary (with implemented radical economisation measures). The rest of us yust hope you realise that untill it is too late. Maybe you should read SF book "Foundation" by Issac Asimov. SF is excelent ground for social experiments, and many of gread writers like Asimov (Robot Series and Foundation Series) and Ursula Le Guin (Novels of the Ekumen series). Even movie "Avatar" depicts what will happen if humans are allowed to do what ever they want in persue of personal wealth and gread.

Neither are objective. Best feel to me for objective reporting of Western World News agencies was during Yugoslav War in 1990-1995 and NATO vs Yugoslavia (aka Merciful Angel) when there was, for example, blatant missuse of photographs taken from WITHIN the barbe-wired storage photographing people standing OUTSIDE, next to the wire looking at reporters. It was portraid as picture of concentration camp! Of course, any government controlled news agency (IN EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY IN THE WORLD) will blatantly falsify evidence, but just because you do not see the connection between "Fox" and "Others" and government or your two parties, it does not meen it is not there.

We really went OFF-topic, didn't we?

If that were really true, you guys would have elected Ron Paul. He was the only candidate at the last presidential election who was campaigning for smaller government... and almost all of the others (on both sides) thought he was crazy because of it.

I think the idea of "small government" suffers from a bad case of NIMBYism. Many people say they want small government, but when it comes to what should be cut, no-one will ever say to cut what benefits them. It's always "no, that benefits the community (ie, the speaker), cut something else". So we're stuck with big government.

Main issue is not the state of the government, but the state of peoples belife system. There is more lawyers in state of Washington then there are in entire Japan. Because they have 1000's of years old moral code of saving face and/or dignity. No money can replace lost face/family name. That is why there are cases for instance of person in charge commiting suicide when their train systems had collapses. But even their culture is crumbling under Western philosophy.

Western philosophy is just get money and who cares about family name, face or dignity. And grow, grow, bigger is better. They why do you expect them to even think about shrinking anything where you are so great and powerfull? I can see this also in Eastern Europe countries in last 20-30 years. It's a bubble on the brink of it's max capacity. If you/we do not start do deflate it it will burst, and only way to deflate it is to radically change how people think. Even if you/we start now, it will take full generation to reap the beneffits.

I'm too lazy to read all the posts that happened this night, but it reminds me of something I always wondered about recently:

How do patents encourage invention?

Comparing a patented and non-patented device seems to be like proprietary vs. open-source. With the non-patented device, anyone can make one for their own needs and improve it.

Does this have anything to do with this "open-source hardware" term I sometimes hear?

Traditionally, invention costs money. You have to build and test physical things. You'll probably spend a lot of money on failure before you get something that works.

Without patents, anyone can copy your invention. They didn't have to pay any of the development costs and they can start profiting from it. Patents increase the potential reward to the inventor, encouraging them to take greater risks.

However, the system has been subverted, in that patents seem to nowadays be awarded for "nice ideas" that are pencil-and-paper things. It costs next to nothing to test software, yet it can get the same patent restrictions on it as on medicines that cost millions to test. Business methods can be patented having never been tested at all.

Another problem is that courts impose greater penalties if they consider the patent infringement to be intentional. (I think it can be triple damages). This seems reasonable, but it has the consequence that developers don't dare check their work against patents, for fear that if they did, but deemed a patent to not apply and the courts deemed it to apply, they would be held for the higher damages. The litigous patent holders benefit from this regime.

Amen!

Double amen! That is why a collectivist government which redistributes the wealth of it's citizens will never be eradicated until such time as it collapses from it's own unsustainability and moral decay of the dysfunctional society it fosters.

Everyone thinks under such a system that they are receiving benefit at their neighbor's expense- (not realizing that their neighbors are also receiving benefits at their and their children's expense, and that those who administer the system receive the most benefits)- and so they will never vote to disband the slave master who provides their bread.

This is why their are few "real" conservatives left in the US, and why even amongst the Tea Party movement, you never hear them call for an end to Social Security or Medicare- they instead want to preserve those things- an idea which is antithetical to freedom and small government.

This is why someone like George Bush can call himself a conservative and other so-called conservatives will vote for him, because most conservatives today, sadly, are not so conservative- they are just (as I call them) liberal-lites.


It doesn't matter whether something works or not- a patent is just to protect a persons idea and to guarantee that he will be the one to recieve any benefit from the implementation of his idea without others copying it or claiming ownership. If I were to write a program (It could happen...NOT!) or design a mouse-trap...even if it were completely useless, I could still patent it to protect my work...maybe I want a non-working mouse-trap...or maybe I will improve it later and just want to protect certain aspects of it's design or features, etc. now.

Welfare programs are not "antithetical to freedom". And "freedom" is worthless to the homeless and the starving. It's all very well to elevate freedom as the most important thing, but it's not - basic survival is. And if a government does not protect and look after its citizens' basic needs, that government is utterly worthless. Defence, policing, healthcare, and social security are the "core" functions of government, what it does to ensure its citizens aren't killed and don't die of starvation or disease. Everything else is extra, but a government that doesn't provide those key functions is worse than no government at all.

Yes, such programs are antithetical to freedom- because when someone else's "need" mandates that property (the fruit of one's labor) be forcibly taken from others, it establishes a condition of slavery (It matters not if someone stands over you with a whip forcing you to work for others, ort whether the proceeds of the work you choose to do are taken from you- it amounts to the same thing)

This is why there was no provision in the Constitution for government-run welfare programs. And I hate to tell you, but these welfare programs have existed for 75 years now..and we still see the same poverty amongst a small segment of the population, because most poverty is caused by the choices and actions taken by those who are impoverished.

Someone who can not even support themself goes out and has a kid- and then that obligates ME to support their family? That is not freedom...but rather slavery and oppression.

Private charity is fine- but government coercion and redistribution of wealth is not. We live in a country where illegal immigrants who don't speak the language can come and find jobs and support themselves and even send money back to their country...while millions of our own citizens sit around and complain that they need the money of others to survive?

I'm sorry, but those who refuse to support themselves and their families, they are the ones who can not handle freedom and don't deserve it- but instead, thanks to the welfare system, their situation instead takes away our freedom.

And have you ever noticed? This is the only country in the world where the "poor" are obese! I see it in the supermatkets all the time- someone will be on line in front of me with a cart full of soda, potato chips, frozen pizzas and frozen dinners, and they will weigh 400 lbs and have a few fat kids, all sipping on 96 oz. cups of soda....then they will pay with foodstamps, and then pay cash for $70 worth of cigarettes- and then in addition to paying for their food, we also get to pick up the cost of their healthcare when they get sick from eating all that crap. This is the norm. Meanwhile, I, who make a very modest income but can live within my means (I buy whole wheat spaghetti, rice, beans, fresh fruit and veggies....flour..oil...) have to support these dysfunctional cretins who will not live within their means, and who are provided more luxury at my expense. This is SICK and needs to stop- and it will stop...as a society where the gov't consumes over 40% of the GDP, and where over 50% of the population receives the major part of their income from the gov't, is just too unsustainable to continue and just creates more poverty and penalizes the productive while rewarding the lazy and irresponsible.

My problem with Sara Palin and Rush Limbaugh is less about their hysterical and oppurtunistic ranting and more that people quote them as if they were the second coming. It's FUD and then some. If we're gonna speak in sound bytes I prefer Ferris Bueller

And some people do the same with Obama too. Who was it Chris Mathews that said he got a 'thrill up his leg' when Obama was coming out to speak? I question them all myself. Some just have history on their side.

...

The reason why we don't have many politicians in power championing small government is because Liberal Democrat, Progressive propaganda, media control and education indoctrination have obfuscated the truth. If you ask people in America what they're position on politics is, most likely the answer you will receive is "I don't care.", or "I don't follow politics." These people blindly vote for a Democrat simply because they say nice things and make huge ridiculous promises which never manifest. There is an awakening amongst Americans and Americans are seeing the truth. They are seeing the truth and organizing against these radical, communist revolutionaries. The Tea Party and the 9/12 project and the Conservatism rejuvenation in the Republican party evidence this. The United States of America is based on small government. It's based on the Constitution. It's not that we must reform or change, it's that we must restore what these corrupt politicians and Progressives have taken from us.