Did you know that the Central Intelligence Agency has, for the last sixty years, published a so-called "World Factbook," on an annual basis, and that this publication has provided "detailed figures on birth and death rates and major exports, relied upon first by government agents and eventually researchers, educators, journalists and more?"
I didn't know this - at least I didn't know it until I read an article published in The New York Times on Saturday, February 7th. That article, linked right here, announced that this publication has now been abruptly terminated, with no reason given.
Perhaps, it is suggested in the article, the "World Factbook" is now just duplicative, since anyone with access to an Internet browser can probably get whatever information they might want, or need, by simply typing a request into a search bar.
Maybe that's it. I can't help but think, though, that our current president doesn't really put much value on "the truth," or on "the facts," and that having the facts so readily available, in an authoritative governmental publication, would inevitably get in the way of our current president's habit of asserting as true whatever the president would like the facts to be.
So, why has publication of the "World Factbook" been so abruptly terminated? I am betting that our current president had something to say about that, and for someone who certainly doesn't want his many untrue assertions contradicted by a government publication that provides access to the real facts, getting rid of this source of genuine "facts" probably seemed way overdue.
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