The problem of separating church and state in the United States is highlighted in an article in the Independent. “[M]ore than 40 per cent of US citizens said religious leaders should use their influence to try to sway policy-makers. In France, by contrast, 85 per cent of people said they opposed such “activism” by the clergy.”
Month: June 2005
Methane doesn’t mean life on Mars
Slashdot has a story about a possible non-organic source for the methane they’ve detected. According to an article in Nature, Chris Oze, a geologist from Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, “and his Dartmouth colleague Mukul Sharma calculated that [serpentinization] would consume about 80,000 tonnes of olivine each year. To spit out methane at the same rate over the planet’s 4.5-billion-year lifetime would require a global, 50-centimetre-thick layer of the mineral, spread a few kilometres below the planet’s crust. That would be just one millionth of the mass of the planet. ‘It really doesn’t take much olivine at all,’ says Oze.”
Rumsfeld ignores US defense spending, points to China’s
The United States spends more on its military
than the next six ranked nations combined.
| Country | Military Expenditures (ME), 1999 (Millions of US Dollars; Percent of Central Government Expenditures) |
Nonmilitary Expenditures (NME), 1999 (Millions of US Dollars) |
Population, 1999 (Millions) |
ME per capita, 1999 |
Gross National Product (GNP), 1999 (Millions of Dollars) |
Percent ME of GNP, 1999 |
| United States | 281,000 (15.79%) |
1,499,000 | 273 | 1029.30 | 9,260,000 | 3.03% |
| China (People’s Republic) | 88,900 (22.23%) |
311,100 | 1,250 | 71.12 | 3,930,000 | 2.26% |
| Japan | 43,200 (6.12%) |
662,800 | 126 | 342.86 | 1,106,000 | 0.98% |
| France | 38,900 (5.88%) |
623,100 | 59.1 | 658.21 | 1,440,000 | 2.70% |
| United Kingdom | 36,500 (6.87%) |
494,500 | 59.4 | 614.48 | 1,450,000 | 2.52% |
| Russia | 35,000 (22.44%) |
121,000 | 147 | 238.10 | 625,000 | 5.60% |
| Germany | 32,600 (4.70%) |
661,400 | 82.6 | 394.67 | 2,090,000 | 1.56% |
Of these nations, China and Russia devote higher proportions of their government spending to military spending.
The United States ranks 5th in the world in military spending per capita.
Countries that spend more per capita are Israel ($1,526.32), Qatar ($1,514.29), Kuwait ($1,415.79),
and Singapore ($1,100.00). On average, the developed world spends $517 per capita.
Source: U.S. State Department. “World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers (WMEAT 1999-2000).” 6 Feb 2003.
13 Jun 2004
http://www.state.gov/t/vc/rls/rpt/wmeat/
But it is China’s defense spending,
which according to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, threatens the balance of power in Asia. “‘Since no nation threatens China, one wonders: why this growing investment?’ Mr. Rumsfeld asked.”
Hating America
Rather than answer credible charges about mistreatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and numerous other locations throughout the world,
President Bush yesterday called a report by Amnesty International “absurd” for its charge that the United States is mistreating terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying accusations were being made by “people who hate America.”
“It’s absurd. It’s an absurd allegation,” the president said in a Rose Garden press conference. “We’ve investigated every single complaint against the detainees. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of — and the allegations — by people who were held in detention, people who hate America …”
So now, people who oppose Bush administration policy don’t just love terrorists and hate freedom, they hate America too. Dissent is unpatriotic. Why is this even news?