Spotlight on:

“Bugloo you-hou!”

The Free Land of Patgonia is a massive, environmentally stunning nation, ruled by Leader with a fair hand, and remarkable for its parental licensing program. Its compassionate, hard-working, intelligent population of 4.568 billion enjoy a sensible mix of personal and economic freedoms, while the political process is open and the people's right to vote held sacrosanct.

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent, corrupt government stops and the rest of society begins, but it juggles the competing demands of the Environment, Education, and Law & Order. The average income tax rate is 100%. The private sector is almost wholly made up of enterprising fourteen-year-old boys selling lemonade on the sidewalk, although the government is looking at stamping this out.

The fire protection service is wholly government-funded, elderly citizens regularly buy posh multimillion-patlar mansions, meat-eating is frowned upon, and a large-scale revitalization of the education system is underway. Crime -- especially youth-related -- is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Patgonia's national animal is the souris-hurlante, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its currency is the patlar.

Patgonia is ranked 1st in the region and 1,012th in the world for Most Compassionate Citizens.