Working in Montréal today --Be Happy

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Montréal today.

Canada slips to 6th place!  Meanwhile Finland has tumbled ass over vodka glass down to 7th from their previous high of 2nd, and they are displeased. And the Dames?  Still sitting in their smug number 1 spot despite that their cookies are stored in tins and are always stale - I hope they are happy.

Yes, it's time for the [Second] Annual United Nations World Happiness Report, the time for all nations to put their best grin forward and try to convince the rest of the world how bloody happy their citizens are.

At the opposite end of the scale the African nation of Togo is in last place at number 156, you must be damned unhappy to be worse off than neighbour to its west, Sierra Leone at 127th (3 or 4 countries over, I don't have a map handy and that part of Western Africa south of Sahara has a large number of small countries).

But how confident should we be in these ratings?  Are the Mexicans really happier than the Americans? At 16 and 17 could it be that Mexico is thankful that the U.S. is erecting the Trans American Freedom Fence (I don't think that is its name, but it fits in well with the global American disinformation campaign), the fence will surely hold back the barrage of Americans fleeing their unhappiness and heading south?

The study measures life expectancy at birth, social support, purchasing power, freedom to make life choices, generosity, perceptions of corruption.  This attempts to bring about a meaningful measure to the question of happiness.  It would be a fairly meaningless study to measure how happy people were yesterday. The day after Crosby fired one into the Olympics net I imagine the ol' Happiness rating of Canucks way dammed high where as the day after the last election and ppl realized we would have a wooden PM for another 4 years.. dammed low.  Instead the study attempts to measure how happy people are with their life on the whole.

The report does raise some interesting human oddities, cash strapped counties often have citizens awash with positive outlooks for the future, cash rich counties can have very unhappy citizens.

Meanwhile in Quebec, the province wants to extend its new Beige Policies to private workplace as well.  "Beige Policies uncle Daniel?" Yes, in an effort to strip all citizenry of any individuality that they may have, all workers are encouraged to leave any evidence of their religious beliefs or backgrounds at home thank you.  The next logical legislation would be to do the same with other cultural and heritage evidence.  Soon..  we will all be dressed in ill fitting beige jumpsuits

A strange paradox coming from the province that has strived to maintain its uniqueness and individuality from being integrated away into the rest of Canada.

Have a good day, be happy.