The Empire of Carp Diem is a huge, cultured nation, renowned for its smutty television, feral children, and compulsory military service. The cynical population of 633 million Matenienseses are ruled without fear or favor by a psychotic dictator, who outlaws just about everything and refers to the populace as "my little playthings."

The large, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Healthcare, Defense, and Welfare. The average income tax rate is 58.7%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The strong Carp Diemian economy, worth 35.7 trillion Mateneses a year, is quite specialized and dominated by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Book Publishing, Tourism, and Cheese Exports. Black market activity is frequent. State-owned companies are common. Average income is 56,450 Mateneses, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.0 times as much as the poorest.

Citizens are deployed to barren deserts to protect small territorial claims, large sections of Carp Diem have been named national reserves to protect the native tribes living there, minority children spend hours bussing to schools miles away from home, and the government puts forth the claim that harming young girls is wrong. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Carp Diem's national animal is the Velociraptor, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Carp Diem is ranked 132,633^rd in the world and 1,234^th in The Communist Bloc for Smartest Citizens, with 28.46 quips per hour.