At 01:35 PM 12/5/00 -0400, Gord wrote:
>Is that the outer edge of Xinjiang that is a line there? I think so, and
>yet I'm surprised to see the Xinjiang side of the border has more lights
>than the Kazakhstan side. I know it's not the most populous region in the
>world, but the darkness in Central Asia (North of the Himalayas) was a bit
>of a shock for me, even though I kinda knew to expect it.
I think you are mistaken. Kazakhstan is directly north of Iran and
Pakistan, not India. The smaller 'stans are pretty barren, but Kazakhstan
has its share of lights. Surprising was the amount of light in
Afghanistan, but war will do that, I guess.
The large darkness is the poor, abused, interior of China.
>*grin* That's probably true, in terms of the literal stuff in 1984 like
>ignorance and poverty used as a weapon against the masses. But it's funny,
>I was looking at the opposite -- at the amount of light being put out,
>rather than the lack of light. The disparities between light-output and
>population are shocking if you think about it for a few moments, and think
>about the general resource consumption that goes on around it in general...
>I didn't think of _1984_ immediately, but in that novel, there is an inner
>party who has real coffee and so on, while the masses simply have to do
>without. The map looks different from that perspective.
I agree, the people who have run China for the past 50 years are truly evil
individuals indeed.
Or as I see it, the West does not consume too much resources, but it is
China (with 1/4 of the World's population) that is barely permitted to
consume anything at all.
JDG
_______________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
