It gets cited a lot in immigration litigation as well (eg in asylum arguments) because it's an unimpeachable factual source that the government's lawyers can't reasonably dispute.
replyNow that you mention it, I'm pretty convinced this is the reason they took it down. If you can't dispute the facts, get rid of them, I guess.
replyAnd that's not necessarily anti-intellectual or in opposition to truth. When "seeing like a state", a government doesn't have a view of most actual facts, like "was this person actually in danger" or "is this person repeating the exact same story as the ten people before them". It only knows facts legitimated by its own systems. When those facts force it to take actions that are harmful and dumb, the government is wise to stop defining those as facts.
replyFor example, if the army keeps launching raids that kill civilians because the government can only track progress through body counts, it is not "facts are the enemy" to stop counting the bodies. (Obviously it would be wiser to stop using the counts as the deciding factor, but if the generals have different values than the government, as immigration courts do, then stopping the count is the only way to stop the bleeding.)
that is almost certainly the point
replyIn what ways would you use it like that? Honest question, I'm not at all familiar with what was in it.
replyIt was a great resource for basic facts about countries. Providing it to the public was genius in addition to being useful.
replyI was in middle school in the 90s and I had that URL memorized. Used it a lot as a reference for class projects.
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