Re: [OT] Happy New Year and E911

On Fri, 3 Jan 2003 13:28:09 -0500, "Thomas Barclay" <kaladorn@magma.ca>
wrote:

>1. Happy New Year (by whichever calendar) to 
>one and all. 

What, you didn't wish everyone a Happy Hogmannay? And you call yourself
a
Scots descendent! *L*

>The irony of a Canadian commenting on 
>Moronic Leadership goes beyond funny. I'm 
>a Canadian and I'd gladly trade the corrupt, 
>self-serving, spineless, public-trust-abusing 
>rat-weasel we've got for GWB. And I live 
>right at the edge of Ottawa, so if anyone 
>ought to know....

Well, as a Canadian transplanted to the US (northeast Louisiana, of all
places) I have to say that I haven't seen _anything_ like the corruption
in
Louisiana. However, Louisiana is bad by the standards of any bureaucracy
less
corrupt than, say, Colombia. (Just ask a Louisianan!)

Is there an objective source of information about corruption in
government?
December's issue of _Wired_ put me on to the "Corruption Perceptions
Index".
This can be found at transparency.org. The full URL is here:
http://www.transparency.org/pressreleases_archive/2002/2002.08.28.cpi.en
.html

According to Wired (Bruce Sterling, actually), "Every year, the group
[Transparency International, a German activist group] asks policy wonks
in 100
nations to report on local dirty business. The aim is to assign each
country a
number on a scale of malfeasance, from 1 to 10, and rank them from least
to
most corrupt." A 1 is bad (expedient) while a 10 is good (accountable).

102 countries are now rated. The top twenty-six, in order with their
ranking,
are:

9.7 Finland
9.5 Denmark
9.5 New Zealand
9.4 Iceland
9.3 Singapore
9.3 Sweden
9.0 Canada
9.0 Luxembourg
9.0 Netherlands
8.7 United Kingdom
8.6 Australia
8.5 Norway
8.5 Switzerland
8.2 Hong Kong
7.8 Austria
7.7 United States
7.5 Chile
7.3 Germany
7.3 Israel
7.1 Belgium
7.1 Japan
7.1 Spain
6.9 Ireland
6.4 Botswana
6.3 France
6.3 Portugal

The reason I post this is that I thought it would make fascinating
reading for
anyone creating a Tuffleyverse bureaucracy. I think it's fair to say
that the
NAC would be less corrupt than the FSE. The NSL would be close to the
NAC
(maybe even a little less corrupt, or more, depending on which nations
you
think would have the greatest corruption), with the ESU having more
corruption. This assumes, of course, that corruption doesn't radically
change
between the various nations.

If you are curious, the bottom five nations (of the 102 tested) are:

1.7 Angola
1.7 Madagascar
1.7 Paraguay
1.6 Nigeria
1.2 Bangladesh

Notably absent from the list are dictatorial regimes and theocracies,
presumably because they either don't allow their citizens to respond to
the
surveys or the bureaucrats simply mimic the "party line". There is no
rating
for Iraq, Iran, or North Korea, for instance. Most of the Middle East is
missing, too.

What I've noticed moving down here to the US from Canada isn't so much a
"better/worse" situation, but a matter of differences. For the most
part, the
people I've had to deal with in bureaucracy are hard working
(overworked,
really), sincere folk who happen to like helping people. Of course, I
may be
biased as my fiancee works for Louisiana's Medicaid office. 

Allan Goodall		       agoodall@hyperbear.com
http://www.hyperbear.com

"We come into the world and take our chances
 Fate is just the weight of circumstances
 That's the way that Lady Luck dances
 Roll the bones." - N. Peart