Red Letter Day

This morning, Tuesday, October 17, 2006, at 7:35 EDT, the population of the United States reached three hundred million, according to the US Census Bureau. Since this information comes from a bureaucracy, we probably actually hit that mark about 8 years ago, and it likely took millions of tax dollars to fund the studies that made the figure official. Nonetheless, the United States of America is now the third most populated country in the world, behind China and India.

Today is also the eightieth anniversary of the foundation of the Anti-Imperialism Union, being celebrated in a country that came about as the result of Red Chinese imperialism--North Korea To celebrate, the impoverished people of North Korea get to use electricity after 9:00 PM and watch fireworks, which is probably like watching much needed food going up in smoke.

China signed on to the sanctions against North Korea, but made a statement indicating that they would not do much to enforce those sanction. However, the Chinese are building a fence along the border between their country and NK, have been stopping and inspecting trucks, and are now allowing public access to anti-North Korean regime blogs which they have previously blocked. According to US foreign policy experts, this is the Chinese way of enforcing the sanctions, and showing their displeasure with their neighbor and ally, without officially acknowledging that they are complying with the UN Security Council sanctions.