Reporters Without Borders recently published their Press Freedom Index for 2008. I saw a report the other day on al-Jazeera’s English news station. The results of the list — which I recall seeing several years ago with the same reaction — are surprising. Most notable is how low the US is on the list, with most of Europe coming in before it. The report on the Index’s website says:

Two aspects stand out in the index, which covers the 12 months to 1 September 2008. One is Europe’s preeminence. Aside from New Zealand and Canada, the first 20 positions are held by European countries. The other is the very respectable ranking achieved by certain Central American and Caribbean countries.

In addition to the above, I selected a few of the countries that I thought stood out.

• 1 Iceland
• 7 Belgium
• 13 Canada
• 20 Germany
• 25 United Kingdom
• 35 France
• 36 Bosnia and Herzegovina
• 41 United States of America
• 46 Israel (Israeli territory)
• 92 Congo
• 103 Turkey
• 119 United States of America (extra-territorial)
• 132 Malaysia
• 146 Egypt
• 151 Zimbabwe
• 156 Afghanistan
• 161 Saudi Arabia
• 166 Iran
• 172 North Korea

You can read how the statistics were compiled here. You can also get the full report here. What do yo think? Are you as surprised as I was?

Last night I jumped on the train to Amsterdam to attend a conference put on by Q4K (Quest for Knowledge). (I’ll blog more about the content of the conference over at Tod means Fox.) The conference runs ’till Friday.

The train ride was long and hot. For a stretch (between stops Brussel Centraal and Mechelen), I had to stand. Not a lot of fun when you have to stand with about a dozen other people in a poorly ventilated tin can. And not a lot of fun when you have a laptop and suitcase resting at your feet. One kid took a tumble when the train hit a bump and his foot got caught on the exposed wheel of my bag. I felt bad, but hey — he was alright. Nothing broken. No blood.

The train got significantly lighter when we dropped off passengers in Antwerpen Centraal. And then again in Roosendaal. By the time we reached Den Haag, I was living large. I bought a Coke from the cart guy (a dirty old man wheeling a cart of expensive goodies down the isle like a stewardess on Northwest Airlines). I had a seat next to me all to myself, and I was cruising along in my new book: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell.

I really enjoyed Malcolm’s Tipping Point, and am really enjoying Blink so far. I’ll be posting more about this soon…

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So here I am, at the hotel. Questing for knowledge and thinking without thinking. Sort of ironic I suppose.