Andrew writes:

The American promise of a blend of democracy and capitalism ... is hardly taken seriously by anyone anymore

Indeed. Those promises are viewed with a good deal of suspicion. Which strikes some people as odd, because they seem like such good promises! Why the suspicion? Here's why:

Democracy The 2000 election finally euthanized the morbidly sickly notion American has anything at all to offer the world under the heading "democracy". America's "democracy" is, firstly a gerrymandered republic, and secondly a joke -- why would any sane citizen of anywhere want some of that? There are other democratic models that are far more successful, and far more transparent.

Capitalism America talks a good capitalism talk, but doesn't walk the capitalism walk. From farm subsidies to corporate governance to anti-monopoly laws, no thinking person now wants anything to do with the "American brand" of capitalism. Other brands have far more credibility.

To steal a great Gandhi quote: "What do you think of American democracy and capitalism?" --- "I think they would be very good ideas."

Why am I reminded so strongly of John Cleese's sex education teacher in Monty Python's "Meaning of Life"?

You know the scene. His line, when asked by a schoolboy to clarify a rule, is immortal:

"It's perfectly simple," he says, and then launches into a spectacular oration that is singularly informative, and totally nonsensical at the same time.

So, of course, both hand-towels and dryers are, depending on where you are and what kind you use and what time of year it is and whether it's humid or dry and how long you use it and where it's mounted and if it's a new or old one and if the towels are blah blah blah environmentally friendly.

It's an answer -- but so is "Out!" to the parental question "Where are you going?"

Seriously, it's exactly this kind of complex "one study said" followed by "but in another experiment" that pushes people not to investigate more, but simply to give up and abnegate the decision entirely.

If the study didn't include recycled paper, then why did you publish it because it's frankly incomplete to the point of being completely useless and misleading.

We must get away from guilt-tripping people into environmental behavior (hello! backlash!) and start empowering people with correct, complete information that allows us all to participate in environmental success rather than simply more of this environmental dithering. How much carbon was emitted in chasing down this complete non-answer?!

The truth is for hand-towels versus dryers, the solution is utterly simple. Lobby a couple of state governments to regulate that any "hand drying method" must produce less than half of the current best case carbon emission per hand-drying cycle.

And let the market do the rest...

You, sir, are a credit to your uniform, and to your country.

Please do whatever you can to encourage others in positions like your own to come forward.

Sheesh! "The problem is us, all of us..." is the second worst commonly uttered line of dialog -- and poor Redford has to direct himself to say it! The cascade of things that when wrong to have that happen boggle the mind.

The worst line of dialog? Two characters sit looking at each other:

"Thank you," says one.

"No, thank you," says the other.

Scorsese dropped that clanger into "The Departed"... along with one very superfluous rat...

Which goes to show, I guess, that even the best make beginner mistakes every now and then!

I'm not as much of a A380 external profile hater as Patrick -- for me it's a case of A3-bland-0.

What makes me hesitate is the seat configuration. Getting past one sleeping person you don't know is barely tolerable -- but getting past two!?

All of the main-deck configs I've seen in economy for the A380 have 3-4-3. Which means in every single row, two poor suckers have to get almost intimate with two total strangers to, say, take a bathroom trip.

It's the worst part of long-haul -- and the A380 does nothing whatsoever to alleviate it. I understand I'm flying cattle-class, so squeezing past one person is probably required, but must inconveniencing a majority of your row-sharers for your own convenience be compulsory?

Is there anything besides tradition stopping a 2-3-3-2 layout (three slightly narrower aisles) on this huge plane? Food service would be faster, getting on and off less painful, and you wouldn't have to give two just-rudely-awoken strangers a lapdance to use the head...

Roughly 3 out of 4 letters so far offers a variation of this:

I don't WANT to resell my computer. I want to keep it until it dies...

as a "rebuttal" to Farhad's main point. And fair enough. But then the question becomes "How much use do you get out of it, then, on average, until it dies?"

I'm typing this on an iBook I bought in 2002. It's running the latest version of OS X. It's running it very fast. It's had a hard life and been around the planet 4 times. It's produced tens of thousands of words, hundreds of business plans, and stores all the music I own, and all the photos I've generated in 5 years.

Imagine a hypothetical "PC" laptop purchased in 2002.

*It wouldn't be capable of running Vista (not that you'd want to!)

*It would run very slowly, with loads of crudulous registry/spyware/hidden process issues, unless I'd wasted hundreds of hours "cleaning up" after it.

*It would probably have had major-part replacement at least twice (if you go on the regularly published averages for these things)

So think of another excuse, Mac-haters, because "I don't care about resale I use my machines until they die" still leaves you somewhere in Western China with a bad case of the latest Outlook Express social engineering virus meaning you just ain't gonna hit that deadline... or maybe that's just me...