In the More Grist for the Mill Department:

I happened across these factoids that could easily be relevant to several recent nominally non-musical threads recently. But factoids are grist for the mill for folkies, so:

From the Christian Science Monitor, August 4, 1997:

The Day's List
Ranking World's Most, Least Corrupt Countries

Transparency International, a private Berlin-based group that aims to help cut corruption in government, ranked 52 countries based on surveys of businesspeople. Using data from the past 12 months, it rated the US 16th-best, with a score of 7.61 on a scale of 1-10. The top five in each category and their scores:

Least Corrupt
Denmark, 9.94
Finland, 9.48
Sweden, 9.35
New Zealand, 9.23
Canada, 9.10

Most Corrupt
Nigeria, 1.76
Bolivia, 2.05
Colombia, 2.23
Russia, 2.27
Pakistan, 2.53

Compiled by Robert Kilborn, Lance Carden, and Vic Roberts

Discuss amongst yourselves,

Chris