Benchmarks

Reporters Sans Frontiers publishes a list of countries ranked by press freedom.   Bolivia is higher up (better) than Canada, Denmark, and New Zealand.  And the UK is more of a despotic censorship reigime than Namibia and Benin, apparently.  

Japan is no. 50, behind Mozambique and Serbia, but ahead of the USA (53).

This may well be true.  But what use are these numbers without knowing the methodology?   

And, at any rate these soft indecies are always prone to weighting problems - how important is it that you're not allowed to talk about sexual discrimination in one country or the monarchy in another, anyway?

The answer to these, and many other complex problems can be solved in a simple and, may I humbly propose, elegant manner.  In many countries it is mandatory to put figures of poiliticians in public places.   In Osaka train station, however, there are no portraits of wise mullahs (obviously) or grinning old men in photos, but there is...

... a baby diplodocus!

With a hat!

And he is saying "I was stretching my neck out waiting for you!" ("stretching your neck out waiting" means I waited for ages).

Thus, like the Big Mac index, I propose the Funny Statue Index.

And this reminds me, a little, of the market - you don't always need to accept the official statistics.