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Well, their fry will be right on target. Wal-mart will be hit by accident.

I totally disagree with more or less everything you said:

1: "Suisse". If you're talking English, you meant "Swiss".

2: CHF Gold backing: It's true the Swiss franc lost some of it's gold backing in 2000, but (other than, for example, the US Dollar) it's value seems solid as a rock in a moving sea of global currencies. An inflation of some 1% (according to your(?) governmental factbook) supports this as well as Yahoo! data on exchange rates.
About that bank panics idea of yours: Remember the all-american Subprime Mortgage Crisis? Some swiss banks lost a few billion on it, some lower management positions will need to be restaffed, high management seems largely unchanged, the general public wasn't concerned at all. How well did british and american banks cope with it?

3: Disarmament: As opposed to some nation in the far west, a majority of Swiss people seems to be slowly realizing the idiocy of maintaining an overproportional army while surrounded by allied and politically stable countries. With a very recent incident of an army recruit shooting some girl he didn't even know out of the blue, abolishing the forced armament seems nearer than ever. There's no debate about prohibiting guns completely, merely talks about safely storing army equipment outside of individuals' homes. By the way: just a few months ago, in what probably is a first step in the disarmament, soldiers are no longer equipped with any ammo to take home with 'em.
I realize that such events need to be put into perspective (during the writing of this post more people died of hunger than were killed by Swiss army weapons in the last decades), but if an action (forced armament) does not cause any good and very few deaths, it's still a stupid thing to do.

Do you actually think someone in the white house said "oh, oh, they are killing innocent people lets support the"? Hey, we are talking Reagan years here. The defining characteristics were fanatical anti-communism and general cluelessness about what they were up to.

Unita were basically a vehicle for Savimbi's ambitions. The S Africans jumped on the bandwagon in order to destabilise Angola, relieving the pressure on themselves and (what is now) Namibia. Reagan (and Margaret Thatcher) quite liked S Africa the way it was, disliked the Communist regime in Angola and pumped money+arms into Angola. Cia sources indicate up to 1.5 million dead, current population just over 12 million. As to your comment on the Cubans and the Soviets, chicken and egg. The Cubans were supporting the Angolan government in their fight against foreign sponsored terrorists. Since the fighting stopped when Savimbi died, 20/20 hindsight makes it clear he was the problem.

The situation with Iraq/Iran was a bit different. If anything, Iraq had closer ties with the USSR. The key factor here was the hostage affair in the Tehran US embassy, once that was over the US was looking to punish Iran. I read claims from Saddam Hussein during that war that the US had encouraged him to attack Iran by telling him that the Iranian army was weakened and demoralised after the revolution. Rather strange was: Iraq attacked the USS Stark and the US reacted by increasing their support for Iraq.

Why do you think Iran had a lockdown on the Suez canal *before* Iraq attacked them? After the attack they tried to stop Iraq selling oil by mounting a blockade.

Your claim that Kuwait has always had close ties with the US is interesting, again, CIA sources indicate close ties with the UK but I have never heard of the US being involved there until recent times. Iran was talking about 'exporting their revolution' back then but Iraq was not acting as a proxy for Kuwait when they went in. Your take on the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is close enough to mine that we don't need to argue that one. Why did the US not stop supporting Iraq after the gas attacks on the Kurds?

Years later Iran had a new government, Iraq was the pariah and then we had 9/11/2001. Iran promptly offered their support to the US and proceeded to turn words into deeds. Then came the 'Axis of Evil' speech followed by the invasion of Iraq. Iran had to accept that nothing they could do would be good enough. They have a new head of state and appear to be trying to drive the US out of Iraq (and Afghanistan) with all means at their disposal.

Do you actually think someone in the white house said "oh, oh, they are killing innocent people lets support the"? Hey, we are talking Reagan years here. The defining characteristics were fanatical anti-communism and general cluelessness about what they were up to.

Unita were basically a vehicle for Savimbi's ambitions. The S Africans jumped on the bandwagon in order to destabilise Angola, relieving the pressure on themselves and (what is now) Namibia. Reagan (and Margaret Thatcher) quite liked S Africa the way it was, disliked the Communist regime in Angola and pumped money+arms into Angola. Cia sources indicate up to 1.5 million dead, current population just over 12 million. As to your comment on the Cubans and the Soviets, chicken and egg. The Cubans were supporting the Angolan government in their fight against foreign sponsored terrorists. Since the fighting stopped when Savimbi died, 20/20 hindsight makes it clear he was the problem.

The situation with Iraq/Iran was a bit different. If anything, Iraq had closer ties with the USSR. The key factor here was the hostage affair in the Tehran US embassy, once that was over the US was looking to punish Iran. I read claims from Saddam Hussein during that war that the US had encouraged him to attack Iran by telling him that the Iranian army was weakened and demoralised after the revolution. Rather strange was: Iraq attacked the USS Stark and the US reacted by increasing their support for Iraq.

Why do you think Iran had a lockdown on the Suez canal *before* Iraq attacked them? After the attack they tried to stop Iraq selling oil by mounting a blockade.

Your claim that Kuwait has always had close ties with the US is interesting, again, CIA sources indicate close ties with the UK but I have never heard of the US being involved there until recent times. Iran was talking about 'exporting their revolution' back then but Iraq was not acting as a proxy for Kuwait when they went in. Your take on the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is close enough to mine that we don't need to argue that one. Why did the US not stop supporting Iraq after the gas attacks on the Kurds?

Years later Iran had a new government, Iraq was the pariah and then we had 9/11/2001. Iran promptly offered their support to the US and proceeded to turn words into deeds. Then came the 'Axis of Evil' speech followed by the invasion of Iraq. Iran had to accept that nothing they could do would be good enough. They have a new head of state and appear to be trying to drive the US out of Iraq (and Afghanistan) with all means at their disposal.

From CIA Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html:
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 4.06% (2005 est.).
Does this 4.06% (~530 billion dollars) of GDP (2006 est.) correspond to 21% of the federal budget?

If this is true, the federal budget represents ~2.524 trillion dollars, or ~19.3% of GDP... It seems a lot.

You do realize that Russia is a federation, with the dominant party being fairly progressive, judging from its homepage.

However, this doesn't change the fact that Putin is an autocratic little bastard with lots of support by the general population. This is not a return to Stalinist ideology. This is a return to good old-fashioned tsarist imperialism and global power.

relatively homogeneous population the size of New York City

Australia, while we're having a belt at comparing measurements ...

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/as.html

total: 7,686,850 sq km
land: 7,617,930 sq km
water: 68,920 sq km

About 15,748 sq km of which is NOT freaking desert only inhabited by lizards.

Certainly doesn't seem that way on a map - but most map projections are incredibly deceiving. CIA factbook figures:

RUSSIA
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rs.html
total: 17,075,200 sq km
land: 16,995,800 sq km
water: 79,400 sq km

CHINA
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html
total: 9,596,960 sq km
land: 9,326,410 sq km
water: 270,550 sq km

USA
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
total: 9,826,630 sq km
land: 9,161,923 sq km
water: 664,707 sq km
note: includes only the 50 states and District of Columbia ( add some for the all the islands, if counting )

CANADA
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ca.html
total: 9,984,670 sq km
land: 9,093,507 sq km
water: 891,163 sq km

Certainly doesn't seem that way on a map - but most map projections are incredibly deceiving. CIA factbook figures:

RUSSIA
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rs.html
total: 17,075,200 sq km
land: 16,995,800 sq km
water: 79,400 sq km

CHINA
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html
total: 9,596,960 sq km
land: 9,326,410 sq km
water: 270,550 sq km

USA
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
total: 9,826,630 sq km
land: 9,161,923 sq km
water: 664,707 sq km
note: includes only the 50 states and District of Columbia ( add some for the all the islands, if counting )

CANADA
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ca.html
total: 9,984,670 sq km
land: 9,093,507 sq km
water: 891,163 sq km

Certainly doesn't seem that way on a map - but most map projections are incredibly deceiving. CIA factbook figures:

RUSSIA
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rs.html
total: 17,075,200 sq km
land: 16,995,800 sq km
water: 79,400 sq km

CHINA
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html
total: 9,596,960 sq km
land: 9,326,410 sq km
water: 270,550 sq km

USA
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
total: 9,826,630 sq km
land: 9,161,923 sq km
water: 664,707 sq km
note: includes only the 50 states and District of Columbia ( add some for the all the islands, if counting )

CANADA
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ca.html
total: 9,984,670 sq km
land: 9,093,507 sq km
water: 891,163 sq km

Certainly doesn't seem that way on a map - but most map projections are incredibly deceiving. CIA factbook figures:

RUSSIA
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rs.html
total: 17,075,200 sq km
land: 16,995,800 sq km
water: 79,400 sq km

CHINA
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html
total: 9,596,960 sq km
land: 9,326,410 sq km
water: 270,550 sq km

USA
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
total: 9,826,630 sq km
land: 9,161,923 sq km
water: 664,707 sq km
note: includes only the 50 states and District of Columbia ( add some for the all the islands, if counting )

CANADA
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ca.html
total: 9,984,670 sq km
land: 9,093,507 sq km
water: 891,163 sq km

The Russians need to stay focused on modernizing their economy and political system. Russia still has considerable poverty, and the money wasted on the space race would be better spent on welfare programs and the education system. At the same stage of development, the Japanese did not waste money on either a space race or a massive weapons program.

Unfortunately, the Russians have become obsessed with nationalism since Vladimir Putin came to power. Big, impressive national projects have become more important than simply improving the quality of life for the poorest segments of the population.

The Russians have a lot to learn from the Poles. The latter are not wasting money on either a space race or a massive weapons program.

The most important lesson that the Russians can learn from the West is that the greatness of a nation is not measured by the size of the weaponry or the speed of the space ship. Rather, the greatness is measured by the quality of life for the average person.

The Soviet Union had awesome weapons and space vehicles, yet was the Soviet Union a great nation?

Perhaps you should inform the government of Taiwan that their 23 million citizens and $682 billion economy are really just figments of their imagination.

Who cares about Russia? There are 140M (mostly poor) people(1) and 26K Internet users(2). Even if the other big countries of the former Soviet Union should be considered, the amount of the relevant Internet users would not raise significantly. It would be difficult for Google or whichever US-based corporation to make a breakthrough in Russia as most people there consider not using US services as an important way to emboss the power of the own tragic country. Unfortunately, I have to say this based on own experience. ----- 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia 2. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/rs.html

According to the CIA World Factbook, the biggest exports are:

agricultural products (soybeans, fruit, corn) 9.2%, industrial supplies (organic chemicals) 26.8%, capital goods (transistors, aircraft, motor vehicle parts, computers, telecommunications equipment) 49.0%, consumer goods (automobiles, medicines) 15.0% (2003)

Although "computers" is on the list, "computer software" is not and other subcategories are sufficiently narrow that I think it would be if it were significant (eg "motor vehicle parts" and "automobiles" are counted seperately). Boeing is in there via "aircraft", but Hollywood doesn't seem to be listed unless you count "organic chemicals" as meaning Britney's drug-fueled butt.

Even if MS's entire $44 billion revenue in 2006 was from outside sales, they'd still only make up about 4% of total exports. I think that MS and Hollywood are pretty high on the list of visibility, but in raw numbers they don't seem to be all that important to the economy, at least not to the point that we should bend the rest of it to their will.

I hope that 380 was a typo... The population of the United States is closer to 300 million.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html#People

According to the CIA, their July 2007 estimate is 301,139,947 people.

(ironically enough, the captcha is "accuracy"...)

the cia has already stated that it has robot dragonflies. And it has had them since the 70s.

https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/science-technology/techonology-artifacts.html

The idea of sanctions was addressed the other day in NPR as well -- but the speaker mostly dismissed the idea. Burma just doesn't have much of an economy to cripple to begin with, and a great deal of its inhabitants live a subsistence lifestyle. In many areas of the enconomy, the black market trade is suspected to be larger than legitimate trade! A decent overview of their economy can be found at the CIA World Factbook.

Take the current Total Proven Oil Reserves, and the current Oil Consumption Per Day for the world, and divide the former by the later. Assuming our current consumption rate, those reserves would be dry in around 42 years. The world's consumption rate has been increasing exponentially...

-metric

Take the current Total Proven Oil Reserves, and the current Oil Consumption Per Day for the world, and divide the former by the later. Assuming our current consumption rate, those reserves would be dry in around 42 years. The world's consumption rate has been increasing exponentially...

-metric

I see this a LOT. The fact is, we import more oil from Russia, Algeria, and Nigeria than we do from Iraq. About 4% of our oil comes from Iraq. We use less than 25% of the oil that Iraq exports. Percentage-wise, the EU imports nearly twice as much Iraqi oil as the US.

Maybe we should just hand the bill to the EU for protecting their oil supplies... Oh, that's right. They had no problem violating UN resolutions and international law with the whole oil-for-food scandal...

CIA Factbook highlights:

14.16 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)
8.26 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.)
2.09 children born/woman (2007 est.)

According to https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/as.html, Australia only makes 530,000 barrels of oil a day, they're not worth liberating.

From the linked list:Secrecy level: High. Two reporters from the local newspaper are the only media who've been inside the compound and written about it (See "Inside the World of Google"): Google treats any and all details as though they belong to the National Security Agency.

Well.... I know they were trying to be funny, but the authors could be more correct that they might have known given the history of Google (startup partially funded by CIA $$s) and how tight they are with NGIA (Google Earth projects), CIA etc..., it would not surprise me to see Google working intimately with NSA. After all, Google has been competing with NSA for PhD mathematicians for some time now (and winning) and it seems like a natural fit. Of course such a "hypothetical" collaboration would raise all sorts of ethical questions, but assuming one could appropriately compartmentalize those concerns, it could certainly be mutually beneficial.

Personally, I'd like to think that this little project (when complete) will certainly contribute to the creation of one or more of the Seven Wonders of the IT world. After all, we all have little wetware parallel supercomputers sitting in the backs of our eyes that can process massive amounts of data, pre-encode it, filter it and more all while dealing with a certain level of data corruption, particularly in disease.

Chechnya is officially an administrative division of Russia, so that doesnt count as invading a foregin country.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/print/rs.html

I don't agree with Russia's actions here but it is hardly the same as invading Iraq or Afghanistan.

1. I wouldn't point to France as a shining beacon of a socialist utopia. A year ago, people were rioting in the streets because the government let businesses fire people.

2. The war in Iraq has nothing to do with out economic system.

3. You throw out a "failing" assessment of our economy without any qualifying sources to back up your assertion.

I know this one will be disputed, but Singapore. Who else has had 8% real growth recently? If you don't count toxic-everything China the country's the economic powerhouse of the region. Even if you do, a country with a standard of living this high and this much economic growth is hardly normal. Furthermore the govt. owns massive chunks of the country and so on. Now you can mod me down for being obstreperous and anti-American.

> The people who export oil don't want to be paid in worthless currency.

They may not have much choice due to signed agreements (backed by US military might).

> U.S. exports are about a trillion dollars a year,
> The U.S. is the single largest exporter, with even more exports than China!

Correction, the US is in second place, just behind Germany, but it is very close.

> the global market for oil is at about 300 billion dollars a year.

I wonder where you got this information from.

According to available sources, global oil import/export is a tad above 63 million barrels per day multiply it by the price per barrel (about $73.5/barrel at the time of the posting of this message) and by 365 days/year and you will get around $1.7 trillion.

> The people who export oil don't want to be paid in worthless currency.

They may not have much choice due to signed agreements (backed by US military might).

> U.S. exports are about a trillion dollars a year,
> The U.S. is the single largest exporter, with even more exports than China!

Correction, the US is in second place, just behind Germany, but it is very close.

> the global market for oil is at about 300 billion dollars a year.

I wonder where you got this information from.

According to available sources, global oil import/export is a tad above 63 million barrels per day multiply it by the price per barrel (about $73.5/barrel at the time of the posting of this message) and by 365 days/year and you will get around $1.7 trillion.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/print/us.html

We import over 13 million barrels a day, which is roughly 5 billion barrels a year. Oil prices dropping $8 a barrel would nullify our deficit.

I'm guessing that's a global number (RTFA? who has time... besides me), but if that was just America, that would be more than half of the population... wonder how many of those numbers are dupes.

Wow... seriously? And in a country where more than 1 in 5 adults have HIV?

Half of China can't read. Pick a better example. China's success is because of the sheer number of people there, there are bound to be enough people who become talented scientists and engineers. Same with India.

I may be mistaken but 90.9 wasn't declared to be the new half yet. Did a I miss an addendum to the no child left behind policy? have they revised 90.9 to be half now? China is successful for various economic and social reasons. They are a fairly young pop., fairly educated and driven pop., and have had a classical history in emphasizing learning and science. Although in a less effective and formalized way as modern scientific theory. If not for scientific theory Europe (around 600 years ago) would have remained the "third world" backwater it was, while China and India would have continued to be the most powerful and advanced nations and Arabia and the Mediterranean would be a close third. Due entirely to some intellectual borrowing from those three regions and existing economic and social conditions Europe climbed out of the intellectual, social, and economic muck and rose to prominence.

have you checked out there Factbook?

It's arguably one of the best country resources for years, alas with an US slant (i.e. illicit drugs are very mymy in just about every country).

Nevertheless, it would be a shame if such a resource was to be pulled for "security reasons").

. . .there isn't a first world country today that is above ZPG demographically when you eliminate immigration.

From the CIA World Factbook:
USA:
Area:
        total: 9,826,630 sq km
        land: 9,161,923 sq km
        water: 664,707 sq km
        note: includes only the 50 states and District of Columbia so this inclides Alaska
Area - comparative: about half the size of Russia; about three-tenths the size of Africa; about half the size of South America (or slightly larger than Brazil); slightly larger than China; more than twice the size of the European Union

Australia:
Area:
        total: 7,686,850 sq km
        land: 7,617,930 sq km
        water: 68,920 sq km
        note: includes Lord Howe Island and Macquarie Island
Area - comparative: slightly smaller than the US contiguous 48 states

From Wikipedia:
Alaska:
Area: - Total 663,267 sq mi (1,717,855 km)
                  - % water 13.77

So, the land area of Australia is 83.15% of the land area of the US including Alaska, and over 99% of the land area of the US without Alaska.

Conclusion: though Alaska is huge, the comparison of Australia's area to the US (with or without Alaska) is a reasonable one.

more feature certainly may be more common at a price comparible to US prices with less to an American with an American income but for the Japanese is it really that much cheaper?

japan GDP - per capita $33,100 (2006 est.)
us GDP - per capita $44,000 (2006 est.)
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/index.html

Comparing Maastricht's area of operations with that of the FAA seems unfair.

Maastricht: 260,000 square km
http://www.eurocontrol.int/muac/public/standard_pa ge/FactsFigures.html

U.S. 9,160,000 square km (land area)
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/geos/us.html

Do you have sources that support any one of the claims that you made? Your comment consists of nothing but outright falsehoods, incredible exaggerations and cheap propaganda. Here's a page that refutes just about everything you wrote about China.

There's only 4,380,439 people in the UAE - 2,966,118 men and 1,414,321 women. By those numbers, over a quarter of the population would have to be male laborers to get that kind of imbalance. More likely is that you have the combination of male laborers and honor killings.

From The World CIA Factbook: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/geos/ae.html

note: 73.9% of the population in the 15-64 age group is non-national (2007 est.)

Why so many non-nationals? If I remember I read an article about how effing rich they are and how they are in the middle of a huge economic boom as they shift the basis of their economy from oil to catering to the super rich of the world. Their standard of living for citizens is very very high so they import laborers to do the dirtier work. Mostly from the Philippines iirc.

Also they are not a very fundamentalist Muslim nation. One of the United State Military's favorite places to hang out during off time in the region is Dubai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubai in the UAE because they are so western friendly. (Friends of mine that have been their say it is like one big American shopping mall). So, you may need to rethink part of your assertation, at least in regards to the UAE.

CIA World Factbook:

15-64 years: 78.5% (male 2,558,029/female 932,617)
note: 73.9% of the population in the 15-64 age group is non-national (2007 est.)

Read further down and you will also see that 50% of the foreign population are from South Asia. Read that as cheap imported South Asian labor. Men only. So part of the gender gap is entirely artificial in UAE's efforts to diversify away from oil in their grand construction and infrastructure development.

Their birth rates are closer to the western medians, much more so than other Middle Eastern countries.

<img src="The more you know.jpg" />

So...Brazil isn't a developed country?

Er, no, it isn't.

See the full list of developed/advanced countries. Do you see Brazil?

To double check, we can look in terms of per capita PPP GDP. Brazil is $8,800, while Australia is $33,300, France is $31,100, Germany is $31,900, Italy is $30,200, and Japan is $33,100.

To cross-check the GDP numbers, let's consider transportation and communications development, data from the 2007 World Almanac and Book of Facts. There are 80 personal vehicles per 1000 people in Brazil, 498 in Australia, 486 in France, 542 in Germany, 570 in Italy, 433 in Japan. Airline passenger-miles per capita per year run 152 in Brazil, 2640 in Australia, 1171 in France, 937 in Germany, 366 in Italy, 800 in Japan. Railroad track miles per thousand population are 97 in Brazil, 1676 in Australia, 301 in France, 348 in Germany, 206 in Italy, 114 in Japan. The number of televisions per 1000 people is 333 in Brazil, 716 in Australia, 620 in France, 581 in Germany, 492 in Italy, 719 in Japan. The number of radios is 434 per 1000 in Brazil, 1391 in Australia, 946 in France, 948 in Germany, 880 in Italy, 956 in Japan. Phone lines per 1000 run 224 in Brazil, 564 in Australia, 586 in France, 667 in Germany, 431 in Italy, 461 in Japan. Newspaper circulation is 45.9 per 1000 in Brazil, 161 in Australia, 142 in France, 291 in Germany, 109 in Italy, 566 in Japan.

And now, we can look at (a href="http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/energy-resou rces/variable-351.html">energy use per capita. See Brazil down there with 1,067.6 kilograms of oil equivalent? Compare with Australia at 5,723.3, France at 4,518.4, Germany at 4,203.1, Italy at 3,127.2, and Japan at 4,040.4.

So we see it is harder to meet energy demand in developed countries than in others, like Brazil.