Alea iacta est

Not much "thinking" in this tank

SMH gleefully publishes a list of "happiest" nations from a "think-tank".

(I'm loving these scare quotes)

The tiny South Pacific Ocean archipelago of Vanuatu is the happiest country on Earth, according to a study measuring people's wellbeing and their impact on the environment.

Keep in mind that the majority of the island's inhabitants sustain themselves through subsistence farming, an activity not generally done for the "happiness" it brings.

Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica and Panama complete the top five in the Happy Planet Index, compiled by the British think-tank New Economics Foundation (NEF).

Australia is ranked 139th out of the 178 countries surveyed.

Oh, it's a barrel of laughs in those South American basket cases, I'm sure. What could have led to such an absurd ranking?

The index combines life satisfaction, life expectancy and environmental footprint - the amount of land required to sustain the population and absorb its energy consumption.

What your "environmental footprint" has to do with your "happiness" is unclear, but likely it's something to do with the trendy green-left idea that progress (read, electricity, running water, technology, education, wealth), is bad.

Gotta love those ideologically driven "studies".

Here's some more on notoriously happy Colombia:

Colombia murder rate soars

A Colombian human rights group, the Permanent Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CPDH), has just released its annual report on the state of violence in Colombia.

It makes chilling reading, showing even worse figures than last year when Colombia was rated one of the most dangerous nations on Earth.

The murder figures are higher than many countries in the midst of a full-scale war.

FEEL TEH HAPPYNESS!!!11

Posted by Quentin George at July 12, 2006 08:59 PM