America's BIG.

I grew up in Massachusetts, and long had the impression that it was this tiny little state in a relatively small country (maybe tenth largest?) on the smallest continent on the light side of the world.

Today, I was fiddling with Google Maps and noticed that MA is actually not as small as I thought. It's over 1/3rd as wide as New Mexico (my current home). ...And, hey, the US looks kinda big compared to the rest of the world.

Hey! I exclaimed. How does the US stack against the world?

I was surprised to learn that the US is effectively tied for third with China. This was shocking... I had grown up thinking China was massive. Way-way bigger than we. Oops.

And while I was doing my homework, I made the mistake of searching for "countries by size" (rather than area), and stumbled upon some statistics that point out the size of our armies (by troops) is roughly seventh or eighth in the world... yet we spend 623 billion bucks. Compare that to the distant second of China, who spends 80 billion. ...We get half the army for 7.8 times the money.

We're doing something wrong.

I mean... that I knew... but, still, seeing the numbers just makes it all seem so phenomenally asinine. To quote (appropriately enough) Big trouble in Little China...

"I must be so monumentally naive!"

"You are."