antonywilliams.com

Have any of you ever read those stupid articles in magazines where they rate all the countries in the world?
They rate each country based on a variety of factors, such as:

1. How much money the country spends on Defense.
2. How many TVs the average person has
3. The average household income.
4. Percentage of literate people.
5. Percentage of people who have access to broadband internet.

What's the problem with this? Well, other than the average American not really understanding what he's reading, and immediately thinking that every other country fails in comparison, the average American doesn't have a clue how those numbers are measured. In fact, most of those methods of rating a country are ridiculous when you research a little deeper.
Lets start with the first one.
How does a country's defense budget affect the standard of living of a country?
It doesn't. In fact, I'd go as far as to say the more they spend, the worse.
Take Canada, or Switzerland for example. They spend next to nothing on Defense, yet, have they ever been attacked by terrorists.
If you knew that North Korea had a bunch of A-Bombs that they were planning on launching tomorrow, where do you think you'd be safest? Where do you think you'd be most at risk?
Shouldn't that factor in?
Lets tackle the third one. Clearly stuff costs more in some countries, and less in others. So wouldn't it be more accurate to judge a country based on how much of the essentials one could buy. If you make 10x less money, but stuff costs 10x less, isn't your standard of living the same?
The fourth. This is a big and important one, but what's the problem with this?
I remember reading on Wikipedia a few months ago, and it rated countries based on their literacy. The problem is, each country has a different way of determining if someone is literate. Looking at the source for the USA's 99.5% shows the CIA's definition as "age 15 and over can read and write" Aside from the irony o that sentence not being a complete sentence, it is a terrible definition that is far from clear. I remember reading on the CIA World Factbook, and it said that people were considered literate if they could read and write their own name, but might not be able to read the back of a cereal box.... Enough said.
5. A direct quote from the FCC

"As things stand today, the FCC counts 200 Kb/s as broadband, and if one house in an entire zip code gets DSL or cable broadband, it imagines that entire area is broadband- enabled.
The result is that the FCC thinks that broadband is available to 99 percent of the United States."

Isn't this ridiculous? How dare they make that claim. Well, it certainly makes them look good, with 99% of people broadband enabled....

Shouldn't rating a country (not that it should be done at all, as it will never be accurate) include more important things, such as:
Happiness/Depression
Percent of adults with a University Degree
Debt
Health/Obesity/Life Expentancy
Suicide rate

Oh wait, then the USA would be at the bottom. Wouldn't do much good for the already low morale....

Or, better yet, why bother even rating countries. It only serves to increase self-esteem at the expense of pride and ignorance