Predisposed to be Happy?

My French and Romanian friends here in France generally comment on my apparently "bright" personality; they are sometimes surprised, though appreciative of my generally positive and happy predisposition and find it, at times, to be strange. That made me wonder, perhaps I'm predisposed to be happy? For instance, here's the map of the happiness survey (dark-red countries = happy countries, lighter yellow countries = unhappier countries).

If you look at the map, you can observe what seem to be happiness "anomalies". I personally think this map goes to prove that money has nothing to do with happiness. For instance, the Japanese, who are "richer" than most Mexicans, are more unhappy than the average Mexican. Mongolians, who are some of the "poorest" people in the world, are happier than the French, who are on average a lot richer. The happiest country in the world, of course, in Denmark =)! Interesting to note though, during my time here in France, I have to admit that the French worry too much and have a problem with feeling "satisfied". Many French people (not all, of course) complain a lot and fail be thankful for all the luxuries they have in life. Thus, I can understand why the French on average are less happy than the average American. As an American-Swede with Swedish, Mongolian, and Korean roots, a Romanian friend of mine told me I might be genetically predisposed to be happy.

Actually, I don't think genes have that much to do with it. I think it's just your attitude. YOU decide if you're happy or not and it's a matter of choosing to be thankful for all that you have versus complaining about things you don't have. After all, "Utopia" is not a country, it's state of mind. 

OK, wow, my deep, philosophical musing indicate that I should go to sleep. I will leave you with a funny cartoon that a Danish boy e-mailed me today.

Today's Random Picture:

Going for the Gold?

So the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games have come to a close and so has the medal counting. I'm going back to this topic because I had an interesting conversation with a language exchange partner who's considerably older than I am. He mentioned that back in "his day" (so... like 30 years ago), the Olympic medal count used to be based on how many gold medals a country won, and not the total medal count. Although he learns English, he does seem to harbor some resentment towards Americans since he also added that this system was changed so that the United States would also "be first". Thinking about it, I couldn't help but notice he had a point. Even at Vancouver, while we did win the most total medals, both Germany and Canada had more gold medals than the United States. (Maps are from nytimes.com)

Top 9 Countries

Then I realized, it's not just the Winter Olympics either. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, while we won the most total medals, we were behind China when it comes to total gold medals. 

 So guys, what do you think? Is this an "evil American scheme"? I personally think it might be, but I don't agree with it being "evil". I mean, is gold really that much better than silver or bronze? Is it that much worse to be second or third? I don't think so. I mean, these athletes worked so hard and oftentimes the difference between gold, silver, and bronze is 1 second/point or less. Still, I was wondering if I was alone in thinking this way. It's all in healthy competitiveness, of course. I don't think the Olympics should be about how many medals a country wins or which country is "better" than another. Rather, it's about the best athletes from across the world engaging in a once-in-a-lifetime-experience in healthy competition and just sharing the wonderful world of sports.

Today's Random Quiz:

You Are Combat Boots

You are a complete and total rebel. You refuse to do what you're told, and you're quite stubborn. You really don't care what other people think of you. You are tough and often ruthless. You are independent, iconoclastic, and counter-cultural. You resent authority figures. You are very headstrong. No one is going to pressure you into being someone you're not!

What Kind of Boots Are You?

Elephant in North America

Can't write much, I'm stressing out over the current workload and the realization that the semester ends in just a couple of weeks. But, thought I'd share this picture with you.

Who said elephants aren't native to North America? =)



Today's Random Word:

Thaumaturgy (noun) The performance of magic or miracles.

Removing the Bottom 5%

Sad as it is, in our world the few rich countries hold most of the world's wealth. If you remove the bottom 5% of world GDP contributors, you'd be eliminating a total of 81 countries, 2.9 billion people (~43% of the world population), and yet, only 5% of world GDP. Most of the countries that would "disappear" are those in Africa, Southeast Asia, a few countries in Latin America and a couple in the Middle East/Central Asia.
The poorest country (and thus the least significant GDP contributor) is Zimbabwe. Then follows the rest of the bottom 5% thusly:

Burundi, DR Congo, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Malawi, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Niger, Afghanistan, Togo, Guinea, Uganda, Madagascar, the Central African Republic, Nepal, Myanmar (Burma), Rwanda, Mozambique, East Timor, The Gambia, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Mali, Lesotho, Ghana, Haiti, Tajikistan, the Comoros, Cambodia, Laos, Benin, Kenya, Chad, the Solomon Islands, Kyrgyzstan, India, Nicaragua, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Mauritania, Pakistan, Senegal, Sao Tome and Principe, Ivory Coast, Zambia, the Yemen, Cameroon, Djibouti, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Nigeria, Guyana, the Sudan, Bolivia, Moldova, Honduras, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Bhutan, Egypt, Vanuatu, Tonga, Paraguay, Morocco, Syria, Swaziland, Samoa, Guatemala, Georgia, the Congo, Iraq, Armenia, Jordan, Cape Verde, the Maldives, Fiji, Namibia

Insane how unequal wealth distribution is in the world, isn't it? So many people study it and no one has yet discovered a plausible solution... will it ever end?

Today's Random Quiz:

You Are Mashed Potatoes

You are reliable and steady. People know that they can count on you each year at Thanksgiving, and you are never a disappointment. While you may seem simple, a lot of work goes in to who you are. You are a bit of an under-appreciated masterpiece. You are both decadent and indulgent, while still being accessible to the common thing. In some ways you are all things to all people. You get along well with other people, but you're also good all on you're own. The bottom line is that you're easy to love.

What Thanksgiving Side Dish Are You?

Panarin Predicts the End

Doomsday prophecies seem to be the trend these days. The world ending in 2012, global warming becoming irreversible if progress isn't made by 2025 thus melting the polar icecaps and eventually resulting in the end of the world, my sister saying that the world will end in 2060 according to some weird formula she came up with herself. In any case, of all of these outrageous claims, I found one particular doomsday prophecy particularly outrageous. A Russian professor, Professor Игорь Панарин (Igor Panarin) has been predicting the "moral and economic collapse" of the United States for the past decade or so. He predicts that the United States as we know it today will be obsolete by 2010. As if things aren't bad enough for America already, what with the recession, the financial crisis, banking crisis, housing market crash, the falling dollar, and now... this? Seriously???

Panarin, an ex-KGB analyst, is now allegedly spreading his outlandish prophecy across the Russian media, getting interviews, even giving lectures on what he claims is a hypothesis based on cold, hard facts. What ultimately leads the U.S. to disintegration? According to Panarin, a combination of economic decline, mass immigration, moral and social degradation will in turn trigger a second American civil war and the complete demise of the dollar. The end result? The break-up of the United States by mid-2010 into some 6-odd regions. Of course, Panarin couldn't stop and leave it at that. Not only would the U.S. break up, but these sub-regions would be controlled or absorbed completely by foreign powers.

Sound crazy enough? I personally think this is Panarin's own way of "getting back" at the U.S. and the West in general and their displays of schadenfreude at the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. The U.S. and the West watched the Soviet Union collapse with a sort of surprised satisfaction as communist dictatorial rule ended in ultimate failure. Is this Panarin's way of saying "it's going to happen to you too", even though it's not? What surprised me particularly was that his so-called "hypothesis" is actually somewhat popular in Russia. So maybe it's true that the Kremlin in Russia harbors some anti-American sentiments? Even though his theory is far-fetched to outright ridiculous, Mr. Panarin isn't regarded as some lunatic in his home Russia. In fact, he's the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats and he's also one of the talking heads on Russian (state-run) TV whenever US-Russian relations are the issue.

What exactly he hypothesizes can be summed up in this map:
* "The California Republic" comprised of the West Coast and states west of the Rockies would be taken over by China or fall under Chinese influence.
* "The Central North-American Republic" made up of the Midwestern/North central states would be absorbed by Canada or controlled by Canada.
* "Atlantic America", my home region, consisting of much of the Atlantic coastal states, would eventually attempt to join the European Union
* "The Texas Republic", which is the "Tex-Mex" area as well as a handful of other southern states would fall to Mexico or under Mexican influence.
* Alaska (or Аляска) would return to Russian possession
* Hawaii would be taken by Japan or China

China having control over Hollywood? Unlikely, since California is one of the richest American states and would be in the top 20 richest countries on its own. The Canadian Maple Leaf flag flying at the Gateway Arch in Missouri? Hardly imaginable. A European Union Institute residing in the heart of New York City or Washington, D.C.? Impossible. Mexico taking over the die-hard patriotic state of Texas? Not without a horrific massacre of some sort. Ok, Sarah Palin and the citizens dumb enough to elect her can go to Russia and as for Hawaii going to Japan or China? I doubt it, but maybe that's not as impossible as Canada taking over a huge chunk of the U.S.

While, as an American myself, I found Panarin's claims blasphemous, he refers to political scientist Emmanuel Todd, who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1976. “People laughed at him" [too], he implies a similar vindication as he's quoted saying at an interview for this Wall Street Journal article. If you really think about it though, you can't even begin to compare the break-up of the Soviet Union with a possible break-up of the U.S. The Soviet Union wasn't really a voluntarily united country. It was transitioned into a Union from its original Imperial form (The Russian Empire conquered many foreign regions, obviously not a union with their consent). So a lot of people were discontent and there were several preexisting nationalities already within the Soviet Union. Can you really compare an Azerbaijani and Uzbek in the ex-Soviet Union and make similar comparisons to a Californian and a Wisconsinite? I don't think so, because in times of crisis, as 9/11 events showed us, Americans stand together and patriotism is rekindled. There is no way that could happen. Not only that, but his arguments are founded on untrue "facts". Economic decline and during the "Great Depression" didn't do anything to question U.S. unity. Our current "crisis" isn't nearly as bad as the media tries to scare us into thinking. Mass immigration? What mass immigration? U.S. immigration levels have been relatively stable and it is only recently that our immigration levels are matching that of the 1800s. As for moral degradation and the falling dollar, well, that's something we'll have to live with and work through, but it certainly won't cause another civil war.

Oh, I guess I should add that Panarin does try to buffer his claims with some insurance by saying that this is only 50% likely to happen. He adds that if in fact it did, it would be great - for Russia, that is. What I think he's missing out is, yeah, sure, even if Russia gets back its precious Аляска, the break-up of the U.S. would actually be more detrimental to Russia than it is beneficial, since the U.S. is one of Russia's most important trading partners, which closely ties the two countries together economically. End result: Russia would experience some serious economic turmoil of its own if the U.S. were to break up.

This case is similar to the apocalyptic prophecies of religious eschatologists and we can only wait to discuss and laugh about this next year, in November 2010. If President Obama is still the president of the U.S., I'm sure Panarin will retreat with his tail behind his legs and no longer make such rash proclamations. Of course, I'm confident to say that his prophecy is wrong. If it turns out to be true, then I guess he can put his foot in my mouth.

Today's Random Quiz:

You Are Send

You are confident, assertive, and a real go-getter. You like to take action. You know that things won't get done unless you do them, and you're always willing to take the first step. You're the type of person who applies for jobs you may not get and initiates friendships with strangers. You believe that life can be full of wasted opportunities if you're not careful. You rather do too much than do too little.

What Email Function Are You?

Fattest of the Fat

Americans are stereotyped as being:

* stupid
* painfully monolingual
* fat
* materialistic
* lazy

... among a number of other negative characteristics. If I look back at my life, I think much of it was spent on defying each stereotype that came in my way, but I won't get into that.

One thing that is kind of true... well, all the above stereotypes have some truth to them, though not all Americans possess all the aforementioned traits... obesity in America is a growing problem (no pun intended).

Of all the "fat" Americans out there, apparently the fattest state in the U.S. is, with 31.6% of its population being obese (and even more being overweight), Mississippi according to this 2008 map:
The leanest state of the United States is Colorado. I'm not exactly sure why that is, but I'm not surprised why so many of the southern states have huge populations of obese people. Most of the food traditional to the South is greasy and fried... which I don't understand. If it's hot down there, wouldn't you want to eat things like fresh cold fruits or something more refreshing instead of fried chicken? That's just my logic, but I guess Southerners disagree.

Neuropa

A couple days ago, there was a map speculating what most of Western Europe would be like without Germany. Now, this map is sort of like the extreme inverse of that. What would happen to Europe if Nazi Germany won World War II?
If you take a closer (enlarged) look at the map, it's almost like the evil version of the present-day EU, which "member states" joining the German-ruled protectorates in certain years. I also think this map assumes the cooperation of the USSR, how else would "Gotenland" be a German protectorate in the Crimea?

Today's Random Video:
I know the above map is kind of a scary thought. So I decided to lighten up the mood by ending with this. It's hilarious! It never fails to make me laugh... but maybe that's just me and my accent fetish:

Lost Swiss and Irish Explorers

Swiss and Irish explorers... were there ever any? Actually, it's no wonder there weren't many (or any) Swiss or Irish explorers. Why? Well... Europeans tend to make fun of Americans for their lack of geographical knowledge. It's true that about 11% of the U.S. population can't locate the U.S.A. on a map; however, before those Europeans make fun of us, some of them should look at their ability to locate cities/countries on maps.

Take a look at this map from a Swiss airline:
All the cities are moved up at least a hundred miles (a couple hundred kilometers). Washington D.C. is where Philadelphia should be, Philadelphia is where New York really is, and New York has somehow miraculously made its way up north to Massachusetts, and Boston is apparently no longer the capital of MA but can be found in Maine. Chicago, which SHOULD be in Illinois is now in Wisconsin, according to the Swiss and Indianapolis is where Chicago should really be. Pittsburgh (which is incorrectly spelled as "Pittsburg"), Pennsylvania has moved to Ohio, and Ohioan cities like Cincinnati and Columbus are now in Indiana and Michigan respectively. All cities in Florida seem to have moved North at least a hundred or so miles. I could go on forever, but I'll stop there.

Equally disappointing is the Irish airline, Aer Lingus' map-making abilities:
New York, as well as other cities in New York State (Rochester, Buffalo, Burlington, Syracuse) are apparently now in Quebec, Canada. Actually, this map is even more disappointing. How can New York's cities be in Canada? Seriously? And somehow, Portland, Maine is SOUTH of cities like Buffalo? Honestly? And Pittsburgh, which is definitely south of New York City and in Pennsylvania, can be found to the north of New York. Somehow, southern cities of Richmond, Raleigh-Durham, and Charlotte are in the North. So before the Irish and Swiss make fun of Americans, I'd ask them to take a look at their maps and study geography themselves before they act like hypocrites. (P.S. This is all in good, sarcastic fun. I have nothing against the Swiss nor the Irish)

Today's Random Quiz:

You Are a Chocolate Cupcake

You are deep, richly interesting, and at times overpowering. You have a strong personality. You are drawn to people who adore you. You love it when your specialness is recognized. You are like a cupcake because it's hard for people to get enough of you. You have a mysterious charm that makes you incredibly addicting. People are drawn to your drama.

What Flavor Cupcake Are You?

Europa Ohne Deutschland?

Biased American teachers from my childhood always pointed the finger at Germany for "starting" both WWI and WWII. Although I do admit that WWII was mostly initiated by Germany under Hitler's Nazi regime, WWI was really a pointless war with no single initiator, winner, or loser... although the unfair peace treaty would unfairly punish Germany, creating a domino-effect of events leading into the Second World War.

Anyway, I found an interesting map that draws up a Germany-less Europe:
So what would Europe look like? France, which is already the largest country in Western Europe, would become even bigger and border Poland, which reaches across to take over cities like Berlin (Berolinsk), Dresden (Drezno), and Leipzig (Lipsk). Whoever drew up the map (which was found here with the blurb underneath: Mitteleuropa ohne Deutschland - Auftragsarbeit für das Magazin Dummy) made sure to "Frenchify" German cities (Kassel = Cassel, Aachen = Aix-la-Chapelle, Mainz = Mayence, Karlsruhe = Charlesrepos.). The Czech Republic and Austria take over the region that is now Bayern, Nurmberg becoming Nuremhora and München becoming Monaco di Baviera. What's interesting is how Austria apparently would get influenced by Italy if Germany never existed. The city Salzburg thus becoming Salcastello. Denmark gets to take over Hamburg (Hamborg) and the Netherlands aquires Köln (Keulen), Dusseldorf (Dusseldorp), and Wilhelmshaven (Willemspoort).

If Germany never existed, then German would never exist, right? That would kind of sad, considering German is one of my favorite languages. Otherwise, we would never get commericals like this one:

Today's Random Video: