We've missed the target already

The major feature of this week's Newsweek is a list of 25 "unexpected truths." Alas, online they seem to be linked in one long chain without links to jump in the middle. Some the interesting and important truths:

* Elections -- as just happened in Afghanistan -- aren't the answer until a country is stable. Elections produce losers and they tend to respond with violence.

* Americans marry too often. We divorce and marry much more frequently than other countries and the disruptions hurt the kids. Sweden has more couples that don't marry and yet has more stable homes.

* The future of computers isn't guided by Moore's Law -- the amount of memory on a chip will double about every 18 months. It's guided more by processor speed. We're at 3GHz (3 billion of I'm not sure what in a second) and faster speeds melt chips. However, more processors per chip are possible, meaning Microsoft is going to have to figure out how to bring easy parallel processing to the PC. I know what parallel processing is and know of programs that use it. I never wrote programs for it. I can think of some music applications that could take advantage of it.

* It's too late to stop global warming. A lot of forecasting told climate scientists we had better not go above a carbon concentration of 550 parts per million in the atmosphere. The quickness of Arctic melting has led them to revise that number to say bad things start happening when carbon gets above 350 ppm. We're at 387.

* Socialism is the best medicine. The best health care is in countries that have "socialized" their care, countries such as Britain, New Zealand, Germany, and Australia.

* Bipartisanship is bad. President Johnson was able to do bipartisan deals for the Social Security Act of 1965. While Dems still span the range of moderate to liberal, the GOP no longer spans moderate to conservative. As of this year there are maybe 2 moderate GOP in the entire Congress. So don't confuse compromise with capitulation.

* Toilet paper isn't all that good at cleaning us and uses a huge amount of paper in the process. A Japanese bidet company is ready to push into America.

* We're all Hindu now. Even some Fundies are accepting some major Hindu ideas, such as: There is more than one path to eternal life. The earthly physical body isn't required for that eternal life.

The issue closes with a Back Story. This week they poke their finger in Britain's eye by listing all the festering conflicts that are a result of Britain's mismanagement of colonial rule. Britain left these places 50 to 100 years ago. These hotspots are: Sri Lanka, India/Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, and Israel/Palestine.