Content tagged with “government” under “The Interesting List”

“ The CIA has a checklist for how to analyze problems. It’s an interesting set of questions to make sure you’re looking at a problem from all angles and all possible solution frameworks. ”

“ A detailed look at the planes, helicopters, and ground vehicles used to transport the president, and how they themselves are transported. ”

“ In 1971, Iran threw itself a 2,500th year birthday party in the middle of the desert. It was undoubtedly the most expensive party in history. ”

“ A simple picture of Air Force One resulted in a long, forensic discussion about whether the plane was taking off or landing at the time. ”

“ Due to several specific circumstances, up until this week, there was still a single person receiving a pension from the Civil War. ”

“ The US government has a long history of wanting to be able to get in touch with you in an emergency. ”

“ A domain name forever enshrined on license plates accidentally expired and was picked up by a very different organization. ”

“ The IRS is likely running on software code that is 60 years old. ”

“ There’s an airline that is forced to fly a single route by a decades-old treaty. It tries very hard to hide its own existence. ”

“ In 2016, a single hedge-fund manager moved from New Jersey to Florida. He made so much money, and paid so much in taxes, that this move threatened to throw the NJ budget out of whack. ”

“ The largest city in Brazil banned all outdoor advertising in 2006. ”

“ The BBC obtained recordings of several phone calls made by Tunisia’s deposed dictator while he was on the run and trying to determine if he should, or even could, return home. ”

“ Adherents of a new extremist movement simply claim that they own the rights to, well, everything, it seems. ”

“ There is an area of the Sahara desert that no country will claim because it would require affirming a border which would exclude more valuable land. So it belongs to no one. ”

“ A detailed history of the NC-17 movie rating. ”

“ The U.S. president is allowed to issue commemorative coins into circulation, effectively creating small amounts of money. So, why not large amounts of money? ”

“ In late 2018, a photographer spontaneously captured a picture of Air Force One over the UK. He posted it to social media, and unwittingly revealed a secret presidential trip to Iraq. ”

“ When the Apollo 11 astronauts returned from the Moon, they completed a customs declaration form in Hawaii and declared moon rocks as cargo entering the country. ”

“ A small town in West Virginia was tired of being ignored for funding by their state, so, in the middle of the Cold War, they appealed to the Soviet Union for funding. A representative from the USSR actually visited to vet the request before the state finally relented. ”

“ There are seven countries ending in the suffix ‘-stan’ and they all share borders. What would happen if they all became one country? ”

“ A small town in Florida lost its only grocery store, so the town itself opened one. City workers help stock the shelves and checkout customers. ”

“ Neat interactive feature that shows how hard it to define something – in this case an ‘assault rifle’ – in order to ban it. Every restriction generates a response and modification to evade the categorization. ”

“ Some US currency have a star a the end of the serial number because they were reissued to correct a manufacturing error. ”

“ A look at the occasionally ridiculous ways that countries will split islands, which sometimes just comes down to spite and national pride. ”