Forget Norway!

[primroseburrows]

According to the 2007 U.N. Human Development Index, the world's best place to live is Iceland. It's been Norway for so long. What happened?

Also, the US has gone from eighth place to twelfth. Maybe this will change when Bush is gone? *sigh* At least we have the First Amendment. For the time being, anyway.

Comments

[patchfire.livejournal.com]

For some reason, this reminded me of an incident in my seventh grade year. I brought home a vocabulary test with a grade of 92. A 92 was still an A, though technically an A-. My mother takes one look at it and goes, "What happened?"

I think that one of the first times I openly gave her a 'wth?' look. Snicker.

I am too lazy to look... how do they measure this kind of thing, anyway?

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

Apparently there's a methodology that involves a lot of math.

Oh, and here's the nonmath explanation

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia:

The HDI measures the average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions of human development:

* A long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth.
* Knowledge, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weighting) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (with one-third weighting).
* A decent standard of living, as measured by the log of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) in USD.

[meresy.livejournal.com]

Canada moved up again! \o/

Tories are gonna be patting themselves on the back a lot now . . .

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

I would have thought they'd have a collective callus by now. *g*

I only wish that Australia's new government could take credit for them being in fourth place. I KNOW the Bush administration is responsible bigtime for the US move.

[littlealex.livejournal.com]

I don't like Howard and didn't like the government, but I can't say that he/the Liberals actually did anything to that seriously affect the life expectancy of our country or anything like that. He made some situations worse for some people, but in something based on averages, I'm sure he made it better for some other people so it all sort of cancels out. I'd be happy if Rudd managed to bring us up next year but honestly... Australia's not cut out for being #1 in anything. ;) We might be an awesome country, but we don't want everyone knowing that, now do we? ;)

One of the other interesting indexes like this is the RSF's Press Freedom Index. Sadly, Australia's number 35, way behind all the Scandinavians, other Commonwealth countries, and a little progressive Asian nation like South Korea. That one's really interesting. The USA ties with Croatia, Tonga, and Botswana for number 53. Unsurprisingly, China comes sixth-to-last, with Burma, Cuba, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, and North Korea trailing the pack.

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

Australia's not cut out for being #1 in anything.

Dude. You're number four. That's way cool. :) I think you should get points for being warmer than Iceland.

[littlealex.livejournal.com]

We're number three thank you very much! Number four is our faithful Commonwealth ally, Canada. But I can see how you could get mixed up ;)

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

See, this is why I should always check my source material before I open my virtual mouth.

You're also warmer than Canada. This should get you points, dammit.

[littlealex.livejournal.com]

Surely climate is factored in! However, probably something like 80% of the land mass is uninhabitable due to... you know, it being a desert. So I'm not sure that would really win us many points. Then again, desert or ice caps, I'm not sure which one wins out.

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

Surely climate is factored in!

You'd think it was, but I wonder if it's coincidence that all but one of the first five involve pieces of the countries being really close to and/or inside the arctic circle.

Me, I hate extremes of temperature. Which is why I'm all wtf? about my strange desire to visit Alaska. In Winter. *shrugs*

[littlealex.livejournal.com]

Hmm, you have a point. In that case, it just incites the question - why isn't it factored in? Because surely factor is important to the wellbeing of the people, though admittedly it's nothing governments can do about. (Except on a global scale, and dude Mr. Rudd is all about ratifying Kyoto asap, this makes me so happy!)

At least you're just visiting! But you are kinda nuts. One of my high school friends used to live in Alaska, and he'd only get a snow day from school when it was -30F :///

[newleaf31.livejournal.com]

Well, that's embarrassing. O_o. It also does not thrill me that the UK is #16, even though they did move up two spots.

On the other hand, WOOT IRELAND (even though you fell a spot)!!!!! *relocates*

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

Well, that's embarrassing. O_o.

Yep. *cheers on the UK*

*edits because I like my Quiet Man icon*