National borders are imaginary lines on a map that people are
willing to kill people for; just for the privilege to keep imagining
the lines [1]
Passport Index 2016
151–160 of 247 posts
Re: Passport Index 2016
#152Let's comment on the visual design of passports. These are all basically the same, except two that stand out: Switzerland, and The Vatican. The latter is very typically Swiss, with an attractive, simple, and modern design. The former is sinister and mysterious, but also quite distinctive. Honorable mention to Brazil and Bosnia for having passports without a coat of arms type of thing on the front.
The Swiss benefit from having a flag with a moniker that is simple and instantly recognizable and fits very well in something similar to today's minimalist designs. The others who use coat-of-arms-like designs can't.
To be fair, I had to search for the Vatican and Switzerland, so they didn't stand out to me. The most noticeable was Brazil's with a "design" (at least a line) that fills the whole cover. It might have hurt though that the Vatican's and Switzerland's passports were on the far left side on my monitor size while Brazil's was near the center.
Re: Passport Index 2016
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you calculate the power ranking of a dual passport holder?
The same way the web site does. The number of countries a person holding both passports could visit visa-free.
It did not realize the website already calculated that number.
My combined number is 159, an increase of only 3 from my third ranked passport.
Re: Passport Index 2016
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who grew up 100km from Italy. US pizza sucks. Easily one of the things I miss most about home. Also good sausages.
America is a huge place. There's a pizzeria in San Francisco, California, run by a man who has won the Naples pizza contest 12 times.
I second this. I moved temporarily to the Bay Area from Australia. The USA has a reputation for awful food internationally but ... well, the truth is more complicated. It has terrible food and amazing food depending on where you go. As my old supervisor would say, the US has a higher standard deviation in food quality than most countries do.
I've lost 8kg (15 pounds) since returning to Australia, but just thinking about deep dish pizza makes my mouth water. Its really something special. I try to go to Homeroom, Zacharies and Fentons every time I visit.
Re: Passport Index 2016
#155No mention yet of the very best passport to have - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_laissez-passer (It's baby blue of course) It's kind of neat to see them in the wild.
> It remains unclear what the remaining added value of an UNLP is, in view of the restrictions imposed by different countries. What is the value?
I'd guess it helps for people with "unwelcome" citizenship travelling for the UN.
For example, someone from Afghanistan working for the UN Refugee Agency travelling to a conference in the USA might receive less suspicion at the border.
Re: Passport Index 2016
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
America is a huge place. There's a pizzeria in San Francisco, California, run by a man who has won the Naples pizza contest 12 times.
I second this. I moved temporarily to the Bay Area from Australia. The USA has a reputation for awful food internationally but ... well, the truth is more complicated. It has terrible food and amazing food depending on where you go. As my old supervisor would say, the US has a higher standard deviation in food quality than most countries do. I've lost 8kg (15 pounds) since returning to Australia, but just thinking ab…
I think it's just the scale of the place. California is larger than Italy, in terms of area, although less populous. If you were going to say that the US has awful food, you can't cherry-pick Italy as your standard. It would only be fair if you lumped Italy together with Estonia and Ireland and took the average.
I've travelled a lot and I've never been to any place where there wasn't good food. The desire to cook and eat delicious food is universal, and the practice exists wherever there is enough wealth to support it.
Re: Passport Index 2016
#157Let's comment on the visual design of passports. These are all basically the same, except two that stand out: Switzerland, and The Vatican. The latter is very typically Swiss, with an attractive, simple, and modern design. The former is sinister and mysterious, but also quite distinctive. Honorable mention to Brazil and Bosnia for having passports without a coat of arms type of thing on the front.
One other cute side note. It looks like all passports seem to span the colors of the rainbow!...save yellow. Gold seems to be the standard color of the type/designs, so I suppose yellow or orange[0] as backgrounds are out.
Most have dignified, darker tones. Singapore and Switzerland have the brightest backgrounds of brilliant red while a few have pale but not over-saturated greens (Niger, Guinea, Saudi Arabia). Actually Fiji has quite a cyan passport too.
[0] The red Singapore passport comes close to orange, although that might just be the way they scanned it.
Re: Passport Index 2016
#158Incidentally the Germanic nations (German, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland etc) always ranks in top 5 in almost every ranking of this kind.
OT: Is Finland a Germanic nation? Their language isn't afaik.
Re: Passport Index 2016
#159Re: Passport Index 2016
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
This will be controversial, but France doesn't have any right to be a "French" country. Individuals have rights, but cultures and nations don't have a right to exist. If they did we would be obliged to preserve them, but peoples, countries and cultures always vanish over time, and there's no general obligation to stop this happening. Saying otherwise is simply a conservative demand, with no ethical basis. "The French…
Part of the rights of individuals is self-determination. If a people want to pick and choose who they admit into their community, that is their right. If they want to close their borders to the rest of the world, that is their right as well. The fact that everything dies in the long run doesn't mean that those who hold their nations and cultures dear today should not work toward their preservation. An argument from n…
Indeed it's unlikely. That flag will be the Chinese flag.