I was surprised to see Colombia and Dominican Republic ranked above Thailand. These are two countries that I have visited and they seemed MUCH worse than Thailand but then again, perhaps I wasn't there long enough to really know what it is like to live there.

I was really surprised to see Singapore ranked below Thailand since that country is kind of the envy of all the nations in South East Asia. It really stands out as modern and extremely wealthy compared to all of other relatively poor countries over this way. They also have what is considered one of the, if not the MOST valuable passport in the world.

I was pleased to see that the USA was regarded as a "flawed democracy" because I think that is putting it lightly. New Zealand being ranked number 2 is a surprise to me because the Kiwi's I know don't feel that way about it at all.