Spotlight on:

“Bugloo you-hou!”

The Free Land of Patgonia is a massive, socially progressive nation, remarkable for its anti-smoking policies. Its compassionate, intelligent population of 3.827 billion are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent government stops and the rest of society begins, but it juggles the competing demands of the Environment, Law & Order, and Education. 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.

International tensions are high as Patgonia threatens any government with the audacity to arrest its citizens, elevator music has been replaced by thrash metal played at maximum volume, protesters are up in arms over new nuclear power stations, and crime suspects are forced to submit to blood testing. 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 20th in the region and 47,324th in the world for Rudest Citizens.