Global Peace (of Crap) Index
Norway tops the list, US comes in 96 out of 121.
Behind Bangladesh (violent civil unrest and rampant corruption), Mexico (rampant police/criminal violence and corruption), Egypt (terrorism, police state), South Korea (you know who next door). Iran’s at 97. Lebanon’s ahead of Israel. France (rampant civil unrest, car hatred) ahead of Britain. Britain, more recently a victim of successful terrorism, well ahead of the United States. Iraq’s dead last at 121. Afghanistan is not on the list.
The main findings of the Global Peace Index are:
— Peace is correlated to indicators such as income, schooling and the level of regional integration
— Peaceful countries often shared high levels of transparency of government and low corruption
— Small, stable countries which are part of regional blocs are most likely to get a higher ranking
The Index is the brainchild of Australian IT entrepreneur and philanthropist Steve Killelea.
“The objective of the Global Peace Index was to go beyond a crude measure of wars by systematically exploring the texture of peace,” explained Global Peace Index President, Mr. Clyde McConaghy, speaking in Washington. “The Index provides a quantitative measure of peacefulness that is comparable over time, and we hope it will inspire and influence world leaders and governments to further action.”
Gateway, also curious about the “texture of peace,” pokes the index with a stick and notes Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama and Jimmy Carter buzzing around it.
Topics: moronocy
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:55 am on Saturday, June 2, 2007
8 Responses to “Global Peace (of Crap) Index”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:26 am
I note that none of these people live in any of their well textured countries.
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:55 am
Maybe we could persuade them to take part in the games Jules suggested earlier? The entertainment factor of Jimmeh Carter wandering naked through Calcutta would send ratings through the roof!
Besides, how did Norway get on that list? Buncha dang Vikings, anyway.
June 2nd, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Ah, I see, another set of “nonobjective” crtieria was involved here. Never mind.
June 2nd, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Germany is more peaceful than Switzerland?
Given what’s happened over the last couple of centuries, I’d say their index was absolutely asinine.
June 2nd, 2007 at 2:09 pm
How the hell do you figure that New Zealand is more peaceful than Switzerland? The Swiss haven’t fought a foreign war in a couple of centuries. The Kiwis fought in WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. They took part in the campaign to drive the Baathists out of Kuwait in 1990/91.
Your peace index needs a little work there, fellas.
June 2nd, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Besides, how did Norway get on that list?
Being fat, dumb and happy courtesy of massive oil revenue fueling their socialism.
June 3rd, 2007 at 1:54 am
I need to comment and I need to go o bed, so this will be short.
One of the annoying tics of journalism, as it is practiced these days, is the story about the “study.” A couple of guys sitting around drinking beers, wamp together a few meaningless statistics, make up a name and send out press releases, with some bit of outrageous trash like the above.
And some twitching neuron in the j-school brain of newspaper editors everywhere, says: “Ah, this fits the meme that our insect overlords have been pushing — let’s put it in the paper.” So they rewrite the press release, get a couple of quotes from the usual suspects (university professors, drunks sleeping under bridges, makes no real difference), and publish the “study” under a lurid headline.
And you wonder why readership is declining.
Here is a simple rule. Before you publish a story in the newspaper, ask yourself this question: “Did anything happen?” If the answer is no. Stop. There is no story and nothing to publish.
Here is a corollary: if the something happening is the publication of a study, and the reason it is being published is to advance a political agenda (as opposed to announce the discovery of controllable nuclear fusion), nothing happened, there is no story, nothing to write about. Have the advertising department call the studiers and sell them a full-page ad.
June 3rd, 2007 at 3:56 am
What Robert said.