> Also, the UK and Canada are alone, or so I have heard, in having parliaments where opposite parties actually face one another across a room, instead of being in a cresent. I've never seen the point of the cresent shape - it takes up too much room, and there is a real risk that somebody sitting next to you from another party can take a peek at confidential papers and then leak them to the press.

Dividing on party lines is exactly what a cresent shape prevents. To be truly unified as a country, a government cannot divide itself up into "us against them" types of groups. Division bring inefficiency and quarrelling. This is not to say that the U.S. Congress doesn't have either of these things. It just means that we don't want to amplify them. And exactly what confidential papers would one party have that another party would want to release, unless it was something illegal anyway?

> If only we had won the War of Independance...

Then U.S. Citizens would still be taxed without representation, the world wars would have played out in a very different manner and the USSR would most likely rule the world by now-or at least most of Europe and Asia.

> Chr"May the Fourth be with you!"ico

Shan-reality check-dar