You think China is communist?? Its a dictatorship masking in a red cloak, just like western governments using democracy and republican images to mask the same thing, but at least we get a public vote (not that it actually does much - who do you want in power: Mr. Corrupt or Mr. Puppet?)
I didn't take what you said as insulting, but I would say it's untrue. In the case of oil, we could simply say "buggar off" to British Petroleum and use the Alaskan oil fields for ourselves. There is _plenty_ of oil to last us hundreds of years. http://search.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/04/04/text/p9s1.html Excerpt from 2001: "Hard to believe? It has been done before. As the Oregonian newspaper reported in January, court documents show that British Petroleum-Amoco manipulated West Coast oil prices by exporting Alaska oil for less than the price US refiners were willing to pay. Between 1996 and 2000, British Petroleum - which controls a big chunk of Alaska's oil resources - shipped oil to Asia as a way to systematically reduce the supply of oil going to refiners in the US. They created a domestic oil shortage - thus artificially inflating gas and oil prices here on the West Coast." With the whole power supply thing, there were issues in the failsafes we were using in the powergrid system, that caused a rippling overload across a large part of the nation. Yes, it was horrible. Yes, it's being worked on as we speak. Do you really thing we'll leave our power-supply system in a state _that_ easy to disrupt? No - that would be niave. We rather figured out the hard way exactly what is wrong with the powergrid system as a means of backup. (at the cost of a week or two of hell, as often is the case) About the water supplies, for the most part you are correct on this. That's true of just about any larger inland city anywhere on earth, and as of yet nobody has really determined a better way to do this and thus a way to alleviate the problem. Unfortunate, but true. Then again - losing NY might almost be a blessing, for the most part that city is trash. (Sorry to any NYers!!!) Please don't take offense to anything I said, I just couldn't let the generalizations and misinterpretations of past events stand.
IM gonna put in a vote for canada or Zimbabwe... My GF says sweden, after all they are in all of our bedrooms now anyways its only three steps from Ikea to world domination...
if anyone's interested in an official opinion on one candidate, here's a link to the uk foreign office's profile on China. basically it's undergoing excellent economic growth etc but there are still problems. guess i knew that already.... You can click through to profiles on other countries. bit dull tho, should warn you... p.s. gotta love the sweden idea...
From http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/ntn24212.htm The situation isn't dissimilar to the UK and coal. We have plenty, but industry finds it cheaper to buy foreign coal. On super-powers, depends on your definition. Taking countries who can really kick ass militarily, we're at a stage where if two such line up it's Armagedden time for both, plus a lot of bystanders. In future it's going to be economic clout that rules, and, barring natural disasters, the US will have a long run. They have the relatively high average standard of education and people in gainful employment that's a long way behind in places like India & China, the average disposable income (money that can be invested) is high, and the country is still quite sparsely populated, plenty of growth available. I say bar natural disasters - I gather Yellowstone National Park is (yes, is - no-one realised until space photos showed the full size) potentially the most destructive volcano on Earth, and it's overdue to blow.
I think someone will conquer the world and clear up all this "country" crap. Once we've got a single world government we can go out into space to blow up some aliens!
silicon valley, there will be an uprissing they will declare themselves as a new state etc. seen as the next big war is likely to be fought electronically
well it always helps to have a bit of cash before planning to take over the world so unless arnie does a good job they're not going anywhere. (although there is the SE asian equivalent)
TAKE THE SILICON FORREST WITH YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111oneoneone131123!@##$!@#!@$#@$!!!!!11111 Ahem... How about Poland?
If I remember correctly (which is unlikely), if California was an independent country it would have the seventh largest economy in the world. (at least until Arnie got in )
Didn't that happen in Red Dawn? California becoming an independant state after the USSR and Cuba attacked the US?
