The Straight Dope 06/11/2004

The Straight Dope -- By Cecil Adams
http://www.straightdope.com

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THE STRAIGHT DOPE 06/11/2004

Dear Cecil:

I have seen statements in the media that the U.S. spends as much on the
military as the next top 16 countries COMBINED! I have been trying to
verify that. The closest I've come is a listing in The Top 10 of
Everything 2003 by Russell Ash, as follows (all dollars in billions):
(1) U.S. $291.2, (2) Japan $45.6, (3) UK $34.5, (4) Russia $29.0, (5)
France $27.0, (6) Germany $23.3, (7) Saudi Arabia $18.7, (8) Italy
$16.0, (9) India $15.9, (10) China $14.5. No source or date for this
information is given. Are these numbers accurate and directly
comparable, i.e., is the money spent only spent on hardware and people
used against foreign foes and not for internal security? Why does the
U.S. feel the need to spend so much more on their military than everyone
else? --David, Landisville, Pennsylvania

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Cecil replies:

David, surely it has not escaped your notice that the United States is
engaged in various military . . . well, I was about to say adventures,
but that might be misconstrued. Let's just say we've got global
commitments, with a budget to match. However, the Ash book is not your
best source of information. What you want is World Military Expenditures
and Arms Transfers, published by the U.S. Department of State (formerly
by the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency) and available online.
The 28th edition, published in 2003, covers expenditures from 1989
through 1999. The report answers your question and provides plenty of
other fascinating info. A sample:

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040611.html

STAFF REPORT

Dear Straight Dope:

After watching Dawn of the Dead, I am left to wonder about one thing: If
we were to suffer an apocalypse where most of the living became
flesh-eating zombies, how long, assuming I survived, would I continue to
receive hydroelectricity from my power company? Is it a
mean-time-before-failure situation, or would the system automatically
shut itself down after a few days? (I am assuming that most of the
people who were supposed to be maintaining things at my hydro company
would be out looking for brains, and that the surviving hydro employees
would be busy digging shelters, etc.) Also, what's the outlook like for
people whose chunk of the power grid is supplied by coal, nuclear, and
other types of energy? Just wondering how many solar panels I should be
putting on my roof! --Jason, Vancouver, BC, Canada

SDSTAFF Una replies:

Believe it or not, this is a question I've been asked before. Many
people wonder how key parts of civilized society might continue after a
post-apocalyptic Dawn of the Dead / Night of the Comet / Omega Man /
Teletubbies Go to Paris scenario. Your question has two possible answers
depending on which scenario of zombie conquest you envision.

For more, see: 
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mzombiepower.html

STRAIGHT DOPE CLASSIC - 09/16/1983

Dear Cecil: 

Whenever life gets too tough on my ego, I comfort myself by thinking
back on my glory days--i.e., 1965--when I got two 800s on my SATs. Yeah,
I know: pathetic. But it's been a slow 20 years. Now this friend of mine
has made things worse by insisting that he knows someone who scored 810
on one of this SATs. They must have changed the scale, I said. No,
countered my friend (hah!), we all know that you don't need to get all
the answers right to score 800. OK, I conceded. Well, this guy, my
friend continued, got everything right, so they had to give him more
than 800, and besides, I saw his score report and a letter from the
College Entrance Examination Board confirming that there had been no
mistake, so there! Gee, I don't want to call my friend a liar, but I
maintain that it is impossible to score 810 on a scale of 800. Was the
scale changed, is this whole report bogus, or would the CEEB actually do
such a thing? --A.K., Santa Monica, California

Cecil replies:

This seems like a pretty trivial thing to get worked up about, A., but I
suppose after two decades of non-achievement your sense of proportion
starts to get a bit frayed. Be that as it may, you'll be happy to know
that there is no such thing as an 810 score on an individual SAT test,
800 being the scholastic equivalent of the speed of light. I am assured
on this point by an official of the admissions testing program of the
Educational Testing Service of Princeton, New Jersey, which administers
the Scholastic Aptitude Test. He concedes that a typographical error
might possibly have resulted in someone getting an 810, but says that
under no circumstances would a letter have gone out "confirming" the
error. You might want to invite your friend, therefore, to cough up his
alleged evidence.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_385.html

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