> People will die as a result of pretty much any peak oil scenario.
Not really. South Africa was a third world country under heavy sanctions.
Yet it created industries to produce petroleum from coal (and even today these companies produce 40%+ of SA's liquid fuel requirements).
If a crappy third world country can do it with 70ies technology (most of which they weren't even allowed to import legally), why can't first world country do this?
We'll probably be too busy fighting each other every step of the way. I don't know much about SA's situation but I'm going to take a guess that it was the pro-apartheid government that made it happen. Maybe they weren't so consumed about fighting with each other since they had a common enemy to focus on. I'm somewhat convinced we're at the point in the US where the opposition party (either one) would sabotage the plan for short term political gain.
> Maybe they weren't so consumed about fighting with each other since they had a common enemy to focus on.
<rant>
And who would this “common enemy” be? The Spiel that white people considered black people their enemies during Apartheid is a bit incorrect (yet a popular sentiment in the west).
It is ironic that statistically, the plight of the majority of black people is now far worse in SA than during Apartheid (life expectancy, income inequality, unemployment, infancy mortality, matric pass rate, TIMSS score, etc…). Apartheid (i.e. separate development and rule for all ethnic and cultural groups) as an ideology is failed (mostly due to industrial development which caused South Africa to become a scrambled egg of people). Yet the ideology of full democracy (i.e. tyranny of the majority) is also spectacularly failing. Yet no one would acknowledge the latter failings.
<\rant>
> I'm somewhat convinced we're at the point in the US where the opposition party (either one) would sabotage the plan for short term political gain.
But in any case, I digress. You are right about this part. Everyone is NIMBY. The problem is also that using coal to make fuel would release CO2. And this is counter to the ideology of the far left (which only wants non-practical solutions to be implemented).
The USA landed people on the moon in less than a decade. I am sure that if they put their minds to it, they can expand nuclear power generation significantly (to reduce CO2) and start to make a significant part of their liquid fuel requirement from coal.
Your rant doesn't mention that benign-sounding "separate development and rule for all ethnic and cultural groups" under Apartheid forced blacks onto 13% of the land, even though they formed by far the largest population group in South Africa.
Nor does it mention the fact that generations of blacks were forced by state policy into inferior "Bantu Education". Nor does it mention the fact that the migrant labour system, coupled with the other degrading laws to deprive blacks of economic and social freedom helped wreck the fabric of black society.
I am as disgusted by the current ruling party's corruption as anyone, and I am appalled by the way the west generally seems to turn a blind eye to its massive failings.
Apartheid was designed to turn black people into failures, and into an exploitable manual labour pool. And any attempt to decouple apartheid from its aftermath is, at best, highly inaccurate.
Look here, I am not in support of Apartheid (or the current system for that matter). The fact is that Apartheid could not work (for a multitude of reasons, including economic reasons).
But a lot of attacks on Apartheid ignore the basic facts and do not perform a simple statistical comparison with the NSA.
> "separate development and rule for all ethnic and cultural groups" under Apartheid forced blacks onto 13% of the land, even though they formed by far the largest population group in South Africa.
What does this number include? Blacks were deprived of their land well before “Apartheid” started. During the creation of homelands, white people also lost their land (land was bought and sold to create contiguous homelands). A good example is the large farms of Lisbon, Berlin, etc… that became KwaNdebele.
It is clear that the deprivation of land from black people is wrong. But the fact is that most of the depravation/deprivation was done well before Apartheid.
> Nor does it mention the fact that generations of blacks were forced by state policy into inferior "Bantu Education"
Bantu education was inferior, that is a fact. But it is a question of resources. During Apartheid more money was spend on Bantu education than on the education of white people (although less per capita). White people almost exclusively pay taxation (as is still more or less true today).
The problem is that there are only so many math teachers, etc…
By the way, Bantu education is vastly superior to all education that every person in South Africa receives. This is not my opinion, but the opinion of Dr. Mamphela Ramphele and prof. Jonathan Jansen. OBE failed.
Even South Africa’s president Zuma, said the following of the previous education minister:
> This comes shortly after ANC president Jacob Zuma blamed former education minister Kader Asmal for closing down these institutions, causing more damage to education than had been done under apartheid.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20080425091635396C60...
There were a lot of teacher colleges whose function it was to train teachers. These colleges were often in rural areas and focussed towards black people. The ANC government closed down basically all these colleges, leaving SA in a severe shortage of (black) teachers (and people in these places without the opportunity to get education).
How many black universities did Apartheid government build? I can think of quite a few (MEDUNSA, University of the North, University of Venda, several Technicons, etc…). How many was built by the ANC government? None – they however closed down colleges.
Why wasn’t there at least a University built in the past 20 years in Mpumalanga? The province doesn’t have a single university.
> Nor does it mention the fact that the migrant labour system,
Migration is a natural cause of South Africa’s industrialization. The population is still rural and development is in the cities.
What you should bear in mind is that Apartheid government tried to get industrial development started in black and rural areas. This was done by means such as development zones (e.g. Babelegi) and making companies in homelands free from VAT.
Another thing that the NP government was fearful for was that black unemployment would lead to revolution. There were active programs in order to reduce unemployment. During Apartheid, SA’s unemployment was much lower than it is now. Do you know what unemployment is now? Narrow definition 25,3% (people who are actively looking for work but do not find any: http://www.statssa.gov.za/keyindicators/keyindicators.asp). Broad definition (people who are capable of work but have given up) is over 40%! (see articles by Kingdon, G. and J. Knight)
This had another effect – spreading development around the country. Now we have a lot of development in cities, but many rural areas are basically abandoned. Rural areas (where many black people live) have now extremely high unemployment rates and there is almost zero industry. The ANC abandoned the country site to its own fate.
> Apartheid was designed to turn black people into failures, and into an exploitable manual labour pool.
That is debatable. The primary goal of Apartheid was arguably to ensure the existence and security of minority white people (from real and perceived threats such as communism (“Rooi gevaar”) and black crime (“Swart gevaar”).
The amount of money spent on black education (e.g. universities) would indicate that the “exploitable labour pool” theory is not completely correct. I would like to remind you amount of black teachers and craftsmen trained during Apartheid were much higher than it is now.
I personally suspect that the aim of the ANC government is to create very stupid and untrained voting cattle while cultivating a very small and rich black elite with close ANC ties.
Regarding the consolidation of universities, I wouldn't take Zuma too seriously (I have to wonder he was motivated to say that by individuals who lost power through the consolidations, and in any case Zuma was in Cabinet and didn't voice any objections at the time). There was a lot amount of duplication between racially segregated institutions, and cutting administration costs is a good idea. The merging of teacher training colleges into universities may be more problematic, but overall, in South Africa, the less institutions, the less chance for waste and looting. I also have to wonder how good the teachers produced by those colleges really were.
>Bantu education was inferior, that is a fact. But it is a >question of resources. ...
>White people almost exclusively pay taxation (as is still >more or less true today).
Hendrik Verwoerd's comments about Bantu education clearly indicate, that it was about more than resource constraints http://africanhistory.about.com/od/apartheid/qt/ApartheidQts... Per capita spending on education for black children was 10% of that on white children. I do agree the Outcomes Based Education (introduced by Asmal's predecessor, if I recall correctly), has been a tragic waste.
The idea that blacks didn't contribute to the tax base, and were not therefore entitled to its benefits is absurd. They were systematically excluded from economic opportunity, so they couldn't contribute, even if they wanted to (and they have always payed sales taxes).
>Migration is a natural cause of South Africa’s >industrialization. The population is still rural and >development is in the cities.
Migration and the migrant labour system are two very different things. The Apartheid ideal was black men in hostels, black women and children in Bantustans.
The rural industrial development was worthy, and it is regrettable that it has been abandoned, but one has to question the sustainability of those developments. Their motive, like much development in apartheid South Africa, was to further racial segregation by keeping the races apart. If they had provided job opportunities close to major economic centres, those jobs might have proved to be sustainable.
> There was a lot amount of duplication between racially segregated institutions, and cutting administration costs is a good idea.
Yeah, closing them down isn’t such a good idea. You know that most universities which merged basically closed down their “satellite” campuses in black areas? This simply serves to keep away affordable education from black people.
> The merging of teacher training colleges into universities may be more problematic, but overall, in South Africa, the less institutions, the less chance for waste and looting.
Most teacher colleges weren’t merged, they were simply closed down. Note that waste and looting wasn’t such a big problem before, why is it now?
By the way, you know what is one reason why they were closed down? Provincial governments became extremely corrupt (the funding for colleges came from provincial governments). They simply closed it down to ensure more money for looting.
> I also have to wonder how good the teachers produced by those colleges really were.
Look, they were not the best teachers in the world. But the problem is that we do not need the best teachers in the world, we need a lot of teachers. A good teacher in a class of 40 doesn’t help a thing. Also, the idea of removing teacher diplomas ensures that there are even less teachers (teacher training courses at universities is now 1 year longer).
South Africa loses some 12, 000 teachers a year (6, 000 produced by universities but 18,000 lost due to retirement and immigration). It is a disaster waiting to happen.
> Hendrik Verwoerd's comments about Bantu education clearly indicate,
Hendrik Verwoerd was not the be all and end all of the NP government. You know that many of the policies changed after him? In any case, I do not care what someone has said (or what the motives were) but what happens on the ground.
> Migration and the migrant labour system are two very different things. The Apartheid ideal was black men in hostels, black women and children in Bantustans.
Can you give a citation for that? During Apartheid, there were a lot more industries closer to the living area of black people. The industrial zones (of which there were numerous) are an example of that.
Today the economic activity near large centres of black population is a lot lower. The economic outlook in rural areas also forces people to become migrant labourers.
> that it has been abandoned, but one has to question the sustainability of those developments.
Whatever the motive, those developments worked.
> If they had provided job opportunities close to major economic centres, those jobs might have proved to be sustainable.
There are many reasons why those businesses moved (from high crime to non-functioning municipalities). The fact of the matter is that work and businesses are now far from where many employees work. So they have to rely on non-existent transport (such as taxis or horrible metro lines) each day to commute 30km+.
>But the problem is that we do not need the best teachers in the world, we need a lot of teachers. A good teacher in a class of 40 doesn’t help a thing.
The conventional wisdom on class sizes is being challenged currently.
>Hendrik Verwoerd was not the be all and end all of the NP government. You know that many of the policies changed after him?
In the 1970's, well after Verwoerd's demise, a black child's education got 10% of the funding given to a white child.
>There are many reasons why those businesses moved (from high crime to non-functioning municipalities). The fact of the matter is that work and businesses are now far from where many employees work. So they have to rely on non-existent transport (such as taxis or horrible metro lines) each day to commute 30km+.
This is a rather strange argument. The reason why blacks, Indians and Coloureds have historically lived so far from their workplaces is that the apartheid government (literally) forced them out of urban centres and onto the periphery of urban areas.
Transport infrastructure was neglected for 20 years, starting in the 1980's, and continuing under Mandela and much of Mbeki's tenure. The taxi industry/mafia was deregulated in the late 80's by the apartheid government. Car-centric urban sprawl also first took hold under the apartheid government (even today, mass transit between the black areas of Soweto and white-flight Sandton, established in the late 70's is nonexistent).
If the Apartheid economic model of decentralised and seperate development was so worthwhile, why was did that government have to run up massive deficits to support the system? Communist countries also enjoyed low unemployment, just as Apartheid South Africa did, thanks to similarly massive misallocations of resources, and coercion, in pursuit of a failed ideology.
Apartheid was declared a Crime against Humanity, with good reason. The only place where pro-apartheid revisionism gets much currency is in obscure corners of the internet.
> The conventional wisdom on class sizes is being challenged currently.
This is a statement without any meaning. Yeah, large class sizes with 800 students is OK in college.
But it is a huge as difference between primary schools and secondary schools where children need more individual attention. How will a teacher check that each child writes properly, or get a chance to speak? I’ve been learning a foreign language recently and I found a class of 14 people too big. Imagine being a poor black kid in a class of 80 trying to learn English or another language?
You know that some rural schools have a ratio of 1 to 80? These are the kids that need more attention than any other student. Yet they do not get it.
You are right that in some sectors of education the idea of class sizes are irrelevant – notably college kids or self-motivated students (a very small percentage). This is not what you will find in your typical overfull and run down rural school.
> The reason why blacks, Indians and Coloureds have historically lived so far from their workplaces is that the apartheid government (literally) forced them out of urban centres and onto the periphery of urban areas.
The reason why most black people historically lived far from business centres was because they were spread around the country (This was the same for white Afrikaans people in the beginning of the century).
At least in Gauteng, business centers arose around mining sites and are unnaturally densely packed around this. By the way, look at groups such as Venda’s, N. Sothos, etc… They were historically far from business centers, not because they were moved there by the Apartheid government, but because there was not big industrial development in the area that they historically lived (such as a town which grew from mining roots).
> Transport infrastructure was neglected for 20 years, starting in the 1980's, and continuing under Mandela and much of Mbeki's tenure.
Again, this is debatable. Quality of roads in rural areas rapidly declined in the last 15 years. This is mostly due to the fact that the provincial governments and local governments lost almost all capacity to function (again, this is truer for rural areas).
> Car-centric urban sprawl also first took hold under the apartheid government (even today, mass transit between the black areas of Soweto and white-flight Sandton, established in the late 70's is nonexistent).
South Africa will always be a car based country as far as passengers go. We simply do not have the high densities needed to form passenger rail networks.
It is however interesting to note that freight rail has almost completely declined in South Africa with most freight transport occurring with trucks (increasing danger). The South African rail company (Transnet) is also a corrupt ANC cadre cesspool.
> why was did that government have to run up massive deficits to support the system?
The Apartheid government did not have to run up massive deficits to support that system. The deficits were created by defence spending (which was in the 80ies around 10% of GDP) and things such as sanctions.
> Communist countries also enjoyed low unemployment, just as Apartheid South Africa did, thanks to similarly massive misallocations of resources, and coercion, in pursuit of a failed ideology.
Yet, in 1994 SA’s economy was 50% the size of the whole sub-Sahara Africa’s economy. Whilst many of those countries followed a Marxist ideology, SA still remains the only industrialised country on the continent.
> The only place where pro-apartheid revisionism gets much currency is in obscure corners of the internet.
Look. Your argument is now “something is bad because someone said so”. I said at the beginning of this post that I do not see Apartheid as good, but I do not see the new government as good (Majority democracy failed horribly in South Africa). Or do you describe a government that presides over a 15 year drop in life expectancy as “good”?
I also do not care about moralizing. As an example, Singapore was ruled by a dictator and the PAP political party ever since it existed. They are generally condemned by people who take the (western) moral outlook and whatnot. Yet it is one of the most developed countries in the world with a higher standard of living than any of its more politically correct neighbours. When cold and hard statistics and facts are used, Singapore is one of the best governed countries in the world – and much better developed than its neighbours.
Regarding class sizes, I refer you to the recent news about Gates Foundation findings regarding class size, versus teacher quality. Large numbers of poor/mediocre teachers and small class sizes are not necessarily better than good teachers with larger class sizes.
South Africa's densities are low because of apartheid planning. Segregation trumped density or sustaintability.
Freight rail has indeed declined in South Africa, partly because of corruption, but the neglect started many years before. South Africa's railway rolling stock is, on average, decades old, so the lack of investment in rail, and promotion of road transport, started long before the present government took over.
The lower life expectancy is due to HIV/Aids and it is similar to neigbouring countries. In the (highly unlikely) event that the Apartheid government had survived, I doubt that the life expectancy figures would have been much better. (And the AIDS epidemic took hold under the apartheid government).The infant mortality rate remains better than the world average.
The Apartheid regime was not viewed as a benevolent dictatorship by the majority of South Africans (or the rest of the world), so comparisons to Singapore are spurious. Instead, Apartheid was an organised state policy to further the interests of white people, at the expense of all others, monopolising the wealth and resources of the country, while throwing enough crumbs at a deliberately dumbed-down black population, to keep them docile.
> Large numbers of poor/mediocre teachers and small class sizes are not necessarily better than good teachers with larger class sizes.
I suspect that this probably referred to class sizes of 15 (small) and 30 (large). In South Africa, a small class is 35 and a large class is 80. It is quite a difference.
How do you think a teacher would keep rudimentary discipline in such a big class? You cannot even check their homework.
Learning a new language, it is important to talk it. In a class size of 80 people, each person would get 45 seconds to talk or answer a question in a double period (assuming that there was no lesson or any interruption otherwise). Learning a language would be impossible for these people.
> South Africa's densities are low because of apartheid planning. Segregation trumped density or sustaintability.
South Africa’s densities are low because South Africa only industrialized fairly recently and we have a natural low density (40 people per square kilometre).
> The lower life expectancy is due to HIV/Aids and it is similar to neighbouring countries.
I think that you set the bar artificially low when you compare with neighbouring countries (Civilwartorn Mozambique, Mugabe Zimbabwe and the Kleptocracies of Lesotho and Swaziland).
> In the (highly unlikely) event that the Apartheid government had survived, I doubt that the life expectancy figures would have been much better. (And the AIDS epidemic took hold under the apartheid government).
The NP government of De Klerk had a surprisingly good AIDS program (seeing as the disease was then a smaller problem).
You seem to gloss over Mbeki’s AIDS denial (he did not want to give pregnant mothers even Nverapine which would have prevented mother to child transmission of AIDS during birth). The courts had to be used to force the government to change.
Even Harvard University had a study which they claimed that Mbeki’s government at least caused 300,000 deaths. That is genocide. The world would have been up in arms if the Apartheid government had a similar policy.
> The Apartheid regime was not viewed as a benevolent dictatorship by the majority of South Africans (or the rest of the world),
So? Neither Singapore (or for that matter, Pinochet’s Chile) is/was viewed as benevolent dictatorships. All things considered, statistically the country was governed better than neighbouring countries.
> Instead, Apartheid was an organised state policy to further the interests of white people, at the expense of all others,
It is ironic that it is middle class white people whose income grew* the most in post-Apartheid South Africa (see again the Knight & XX study I mentioned) while unemployment and real salaries fell for black people.
So, if you complain about the enrichment of white people, the current government is doing a much better job of it. Income inequality increased significantly the past 15 years.
> deliberately dumbed-down black population, to keep them docile.
This is also debatable. The biggest expansion of tertiary education on the African continent (for both black and white people) occurred during the 70ies and 80ies. Even the TIMSS study (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) scores were higher in 1994/1995 than in the newer study. There are numerous international benchmarks which showed that the quality of education declined.
> but it's us stinky hippies that bang on the loudest and for the longest about sustainable transport solutions, renewable energy and sustainable population.
Nope. Wasn't the "stinky hippies" the groups that consistently protested against nuclear power? Being anti-nuclear power in the 70ies and 80ies was the bandwagon for the far left (now it is global warming).
> just blacklisting a few of the larger and more egregious content farms seems like a decent band-aid.
The real band aid would be to enable users to blacklist sites that they don't want to see. I often search for things and come across the same spam sites that I do not want, over and over.
After that a distributed trust model should be built so that users can share blacklists of spam sites.
It is not google news but sites which aggregate search terms. A good example is www.eudict.com which repeatedly puts up other peoples' search terms as real words.
(If you are searching for some words, you are flooded with EUDicks search spam)
It is not as simple as that. There are many countries in which the official work day is less than the real work day. As an example, in Japan no-one leaves before the boss leaves (so it can be longer than the official time).
Also, in some countries there are many people working for themselves (such as in small businesses). These people generally work more than the official time.
I had a family member work for 14 hours a week (10 hours saturday and sunday) while starting their own business (this went on for two years).
Small business owners break the law a lot and work more than the allotted time.
> It was the first multinational corporation in the world and the first company to issue stock.[1] It was also arguably the world's first megacorporation, possessing quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, negotiate treaties, coin money, and establish colonies
> Statistically, the VOC eclipsed all of its rivals in the Asia trade. Between 1602 and 1796 the VOC sent almost a million Europeans to work in the Asia trade on 4,785 ships, and netted for their efforts more than 2.5 million tons of Asian trade goods. By contrast, the rest of Europe combined sent only 882,412 people from 1500 to 1795, and the fleet of the English (later British) East India Company, the VOC’s nearest competitor, was a distant second to its total traffic with 2,690 ships and a mere one-fifth the tonnage of goods carried by the VOC. The VOC enjoyed huge profits from its spice monopoly through most of the 1600s.
> The Dutch East India Company remained an important trading concern for almost two centuries, paying an 18% annual dividend for almost 200 years.
I came year wanting to say exactly the same thing.
I walk each day past a primary school and all kids arrive unassisted. There are however teachers welcoming them at the gates and one police officer at the road crossing. But other than that they are on their own.
In Japan, motorcar drivers actually seem scared of pedestrians. I have difficulty crossing the road. In my country you usually stand still beside the road and wait for the cars to pass (for an opening). Here if you even look like you want to cross the road at some point in the future, the cars stop.
Haha yeah, I can imagine that poor tourists coming to Greece from the UK are in for a surprise. We are such shit drivers, but over here (London) if you see a car coming and wait by the sidewalk for it to pass, they stop and let you through. I mean, it'd just be faster for both of us if you continued at normal speed, then I wouldn't have to wait for you to slow down!
Yeah, my country has worse drivers than Greece (trust me).
Here is how I cross the road in Japan: I wait at a place that I want to cross, but I turn my body away from the road. That way they think I am just standing there and drive past (instead of awkwardly stopping, etc...).
A lot of Japanese people that I've talked to don't have driving licenses. One person specifically said that it was because she was afraid of hurting others. That is quite different from my country's SUV style entitlement.
I had the exact same experience coming to London from Athens. I was in absolute shock that cars were stopping for me to pass when I was at a pedestrian crossing. You can't even stand near a crossing without having cars stop, just in case. Of course this only makes it worse when I go back home, and get more and more irritated at the apparent invisibility of pedestrians..
Come to think of it, I didn't think there was another Greek HNer in London, this is definitely worth a beer. Drop me an e-mail, or come to the next HN meetup this Thursday.
Ah, unfortunately I'm leaving this week :/ I'm going back home to be disappointed at our road manners :P I've been here a year, that's unfortunate... Thanks for the offer, though!
> Greek shipbuilding was probably on its way to China anyways (just like US steel making, and uncounted other
It doesn't have to be that way. Japan has some of the highest labour rates and expensive electricity. It has to import both iron ore and coal. Yet it is home to the very profitable steel mill: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippon_Steel
That addresses the consequences of a problem and not the root causes. It is important to stop the cause of petty vandalism.
I can take a bet that if most countries had corporal punishment and applied it readily and liberally to vandalism cases, both vandalism and other offenses would be stopped.
In the west people continue to do crimes (and let off) until they do a major crime (when it is too late to change entrenched behaviour).
I can take a bet that if most countries had corporal punishment and applied it readily and liberally to vandalism cases, both vandalism and other offenses would be stopped.
[citation needed]
I personally find a lack of serious psychological research that finds correlation between corporal punishment and increase of quality of life in the society where it is practiced. That observation makes me believe that this practice should be abolished, or severely restricted at least.
Firstly, a lot of studies (esp. in the USA) shows that corporal punishment have negative outcomes. This is because they do not control for other variables (such as socio-economic circumstances). Poorer parents often hit their kids more (and many studies do make a distinction between parental abuse and responsible punishment).
This is the same as the “powerlines causes cancer” research (people living near powerlines tend to be poorer and more prone to cancer). And powerlines is not even an ideological viewpoint!
The problem is that I can give you a slew of papers saying that “corporal punishment has no detrimental effects” and you can give me another slew saying it has detrimental effects. Such internet discussions will not go anywhere (the same as with the death penalty or gun rights). Perhaps I was wrong to bring this up in YCNews (since this is not the forum for such debates).
In any case, in the country of Singapore they have less crime and fewer problems that 99% of Western countries. Yet they have very strict laws (including corporal and capital punishment for drug offences).
EDIT: The original point I wanted to make was this:
In the USA, tough punishment only comes after the criminal has firmly established his bad behaviour. Any pet owner knows that at that stage it is the most difficult to change set behaviour.
You have silly things such as three strikes laws. Why? The third time that behaviour is fixed.
If that same person were punished severely for his first crime (however minor) he would think twice about breaking the law.
That is how it works in Singapore - the first crime is punished hard, and the behaviour doesn't re-occur.
In Singapore you also have a very high chance of getting caught. The change of getting caught is a much better prediction for crime than the severity of punishment.
> which isn't free, and the other is that customers strongly prefer to shop where free parking is available.
It is not just that. The mere act of shopping at most stores requires a car.
In Japan for example all fairly big items (such as chairs, etc...) gets delivered. You do not buy 24 cans of coke and a liter of mayonnaise and take it on the train with you. You buy one ridiculously small can of coke at a small (and expensive) convenience store near you.
So, I wouldn't be as quick as to require all people shopping to not come with a car.
Living in the suburbs has its advantages - cheap storage space, etc... So you can actually buy in bulk.
I agree. Reddit&Digg have their own (what I can only describe as troll sites) such as DailyKos.
IRL, that is generally what I like about Europeans (or at least my impression of them) - they have more mild beliefs. A lot of Americans seem to have very strong predetermined beliefs.
Not really. South Africa was a third world country under heavy sanctions.
Yet it created industries to produce petroleum from coal (and even today these companies produce 40%+ of SA's liquid fuel requirements).
If a crappy third world country can do it with 70ies technology (most of which they weren't even allowed to import legally), why can't first world country do this?