The CIA World Factbook
I've already forgotten what odd trail led me to the World Factbook, published and updated every two weeks by the United States Central Intelligence Bureau. As you've probably guessed, it's a compendium of facts relating to every country and region on earth. It's just chocked full of crazy and useless statistics. Under the Frequently Asked Questions section it states that the purpose of the Factbook is to supply quick and accessible data to members of the government. I take that to mean if you want to comment on Argentina, you don't actually have to be an expert on that country; you just read the Factbook for five minutes before scribbling out the memo. It even lists the names of the current leaders, in case you have problems remembering that, too.
Some fun facts: The US and Russia have not made any territorial claims to Antarctica, and do not recognize any claims made in the past by 7 different nations. However, the US and Russia reserve the right to make claims in the future (In other words: We don't own it, but if we want to own it later, we do, and what the hell are you guys going to do about it anyway?).
Also, Canada's population below the poverty line is listed at 15.9%, but the statistic is accompanied by a note: "this figure is the Low Income Cut-Off (LICO), a calculation that results in higher figures than found in many comparable economies; Canada does not have an official poverty line." Despite the problems that come with assuming things, I'm going to assume that the LICO is the personal living allowance that we see on our tax returns, and thus people who make less than this are not taxed. That figure is currently something like $9,000. This is not a lot of money. Yet the above note suggests that other countries use a much lower figure. Now I ask: does that mean Canada's numbers result in higher figures as the note says, or that Canada is just a bit more honest about the amount of poor people in the country? The same figure for the US is 12% (which by the way, would be the population of Canada).
Some fun facts: The US and Russia have not made any territorial claims to Antarctica, and do not recognize any claims made in the past by 7 different nations. However, the US and Russia reserve the right to make claims in the future (In other words: We don't own it, but if we want to own it later, we do, and what the hell are you guys going to do about it anyway?).
Also, Canada's population below the poverty line is listed at 15.9%, but the statistic is accompanied by a note: "this figure is the Low Income Cut-Off (LICO), a calculation that results in higher figures than found in many comparable economies; Canada does not have an official poverty line." Despite the problems that come with assuming things, I'm going to assume that the LICO is the personal living allowance that we see on our tax returns, and thus people who make less than this are not taxed. That figure is currently something like $9,000. This is not a lot of money. Yet the above note suggests that other countries use a much lower figure. Now I ask: does that mean Canada's numbers result in higher figures as the note says, or that Canada is just a bit more honest about the amount of poor people in the country? The same figure for the US is 12% (which by the way, would be the population of Canada).
posted by Kris at 2:39 PM
3 Comments:
Interesting...
I checked out the fact book, and indeed they do have lame and uninteresting facts. Who knew that the CIA could be so boring. I mean I knew that they don't know shit, but c'mon....
The problem is that it is called a 'factbook.' If it were called the CIA World Action-Adventure Novel', then we'd get to see all the good shit. Factbooks are boring, but adventure novels rock!
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