How does one determine where one stands on the "Development Ladder" in relation to other countries? Sure, it is easy to say the US ranks higher than The Congo, but what about comparing Croatia and Belarus or Myanmar and Burkina Faso? Are there groupings where these 9 countries are on the same rung and those 8 are on the one above? Should everyone open up to the others on the same rung and below or just below with an intermediate step to those on the same rung? And if you are Burkina Faso, do you open up more to Chile than to the USA? Or not at all to either?

Hasbro should be well aquainted with Monopoly as it is virtually one itself. It even went so far as to buy troubled Avalon Hill, with which it didn't really compete, just to prevent others from publishing the games Avalon Hill used to publish. Hasbro mostly sits on the rights to these games, licensing out a few it doesn't see as a threat. To think Hasbros' baord games compted with Avalon Hill's is nothing short of silly, yet they thought it was competition.

Hasbro has a few products it thinks are money makers and will do whatever it can to make more money from them. That's why Fill-in-the-blank-opoly has exploded in the past few years. You can already buy a Monopoly based on your college, town, city, sports team, SF franchise, etc... Why would putting corporate sponsored pieces int the game bother or surprise anyone?

I too learned Basic when I was a kid. When in college I was unfortunate enough to learn Modula II and other crappy "learning" languages. Fortunately, I soon learned Visual Basic and Web systems. This is what really inspired me to program. Today I make my living as a consultant, going from company to company fixing the bad, line-oriented code written by people who still think Basic and Cobol programming is how it all works, even in Visual Basic.

As others have mentioned, HTML, DHTML, VBScript, Javascript and more are all available for free on every computer with a browser. I'm surprised someone who claims to be at the forefront of the computer revolution doesn't know this. Also that you claim to be part of the "creative spasm" and don't have a programming environment available for your kid.

In addition, Microsoft Word, Excel, etc... come with VBA, which is for all intents and purposes, a learning environment for Visual Basic. You can learn many of the basics using any of these at least as well as you could using the old BASIC.

However, if you insist on your kid learnng BASIC (and I'm sure that when he grows up, I or others like me, will be removing the GOTO statements from his Object Oriented modules), why don't you get some of the Popular Mechanics magazines from the late 60s through the early 80s and make him build his own computer? Sure, he'll have to program it at the very lowest level and at best he'll end up with a rudimentary calculator, but think of how much he'll learn about the "nuts and bolts"

I can't believe you Ravens fans are showing such huge Anti-King bais! If you'd been paying any attention at all, you'd know that the "What-the-Heck TM Pick" is chosed by looking for the biggest blowout of the week and then picking the team on the losing side. It is done because surprises happen all the time in the NFL and because it is funny. Show the man some respect by reading more than just your team's pick.

When you see him next, tell him you want him to quit drinking exactly like last time. When he brings up "well, you started smoking again", tell him "Nope! I quit." For some people the implicit challenge will be enough to at least get him into a treatment program. Of course, you really have to have quit. If he's the type that responds better to shared misery, tell him you'll both go through quitting together. If he's combative make it along the lines of "what, you can't do what I can do?" If he's sexist, make it "what, you can't do what a woman can do?" Maybe he needs to know that his continuing to live makes a difference to someone, or that his quitting drinking makes a difference to someone. In that case, you giving up a difficult addiction of your own should help quite a bit.

Your quitting smoking can help him with the motivation if he's any of a number of personality types and it'll benefit you and your family too. That is, if you actually care enough about his quitting drinking to give up smoking. If not, it'll tell you just how much you actually care about his problem and you can let him live his life and die the way he seems to be choosing.

He fell back on the authoritarian standards: Lies, fear and hate. The Right has spent decades building a lie machine out of talk radio and Fox News. After that, lie about your intentions and push fear and hate to those prone to it and presto! Power for Power's sake is yours. These people are still the Stalinists they used to be, they use all the same tactics. Why do you think the republican color is Red now?

From what I understand the Social Democrats have only been out of power 4 short times since 1917. The current span was several decades. It isn't that surprising that there'd be a change once in a while. The other party only edged them out by a few % and neither coalition garnered more than 50% of the vote.

DonB,

"everyone knows it when they start, and can choose another path if they wish"

What other path can they take? A minimum wage job with just their HS diploma? Compared to riding out college and ending up in the NFL? That's not really a choice at all, is it?