CIA World Fact Book

[miriam_e]

I've always been a bit of a fan of the CIA's World Fact Book. Say what you want about the organisation's troublesome morals, they are good cataloguers of information. I downloaded the latest (2008!) copy last night because I needed some good vector maps and they include pdf maps in the appendix. (I hate pdf, but beggars can't be choosers.) Anyway, I was spending time I shouldn't have browsing the fact book itself and noticed an interesting thing. The summary at the beginning of each country's chapter, and at the head of each part inside that chapter doesn't necessarily reflect the statistics that follow.

For instance, based upon the summaries you could be forgiven for thinking that the USA has a wonderful level of employment, Australia has an acceptable one and that Sweden's is at dangerous levels. Actually, the fact book gives the figures for unemployment rate at:
USA 4.6%
Sweden 4.5%
Australia 4.4%

Likewise the glowing report on the USA's economy would lead you to believe they are a shining example of dynamism, and Sweden verging on stagnation. Here is the GDP:
USA 2.2%
Sweden 3.4%
Australia 4%

Of course that is just how the money side of things work, and that doesn't necessarily relate to how well off the humans are. The number of people living below the poverty level is a better indicator of that:
USA 12%
Sweden -
Australia -
The figures for Australia have to be pretty shonky because I consider myself below the poverty line, and there are people worse off than I am, but on the whole I have to say I lead a quite luxurious existence because my lifestyle requires very little money. Pity the USA though, where an 8th of the population lives below the poverty level! And given the employment figures, most of those below the poverty line must be working. What a horrid existence that would be -- to be an indentured wage slave with no way out and still stuck below the poverty line.

Two other guides to how good life might be are infant mortality and life expectancy:
Infant mortality (deaths per 1000 live births):
USA 6.37
Sweden 2.76
Australia 4.57

Life expectancy:
USA 78
Sweden 80.63
Australia 80.62

How is health hampered by religious intolerance?
AIDS prevalence in adult population:
USA 0.6%
Sweden 0.1%
Australia 0.1%

So... download the CIA World Fact Book. It is a goldmine of information, but do read further than the biased summaries.

Oh, the address?
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html
You can refer online or download it.

Comments

CIA Factbook

[revbobbob.livejournal.com]

The copy you have may have been an earlier one from before the time lying and covering up became official policy.

Or it may be more recent and the true figures may have crept out unnoticed. These are not smart people we're dealing with here. They're right-wing ideologues , not Brookings Institution Fellows.

klanwatch.org is reliable. It redirects to the main Southern Poverty Law Center site where (lookee here!) a search for "Family First" turns up a history of the anti-GLBT "movement" which, of course, unlike real grassroots movements is strictly top-down.

Thank Ghod for the American dogma of the free market! There's enough little tinpot Mussolinis contending with each other to be top swine that they aren't as coordinated as you might fear. Sure, they all spout the same slogans, use the same kinds of cover, but all that means is that they lack imagination. I don't see a many-tentacled grand conspiracy, though a search through who gives money to these guys might find some of the same names. So who says fat cats can't be suckers too?


I didn't read far enough down to see any references to .au, but our own gangs of anti-gay thugs are plenty bad . Lawrence King is more than enough for me, and the kid who murdered him didn't come up with the idea all by himself.


Has the infection that calls itself the Fellowship of Christian Athletes taken root over there yet? There's the potential footsoldiers, but, not to be a total bigot myself, some of them do nothing worse than holding prayer circles in facilities all of us paid for and giving all the credit for their victories to Jeebus.

Btw, I'm sure you know this: bilerico.com usually has important news for the community up, both in articles and on message boards. Getting off the front page is such a chore that I haven't found anything outside the US yet. It looks about as organized as my sock drawer. Maybe somebody will spill the secret for finding stuff there in words small enough that I can get them.

Re: CIA Factbook

[revbobbob.livejournal.com]

Or there's the explanation that has the highest probability of all: I'm simply full of it and the CIA factbook is fine, just you saw with your own eyes.

Well, I'm dead wrong in the first part of my posting. Klanwatch and bilerico.com are still pretty good.

Me, on the other hand:, not so good.