Friday, February 23, 2007

Northern folks more happy?

A recent report by the OECD shows that from all OECD countries, more people in Iceland, Ireland, Canada and the Netherlands are happy with all four countries with more than 95% its (surveyed) population replying that they are "quite happy" or "very happy".
However it is the Netherlands with more respondants saying they are "very happy". However most of the other northern European countries- i.e. Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark- are not that far behind with highest percentages of the population saying they are happy.

Why is this?
They do all have the "developed welfare state" although they also have bad/cold weather, and looong winter nights.
However, they also have high suicide rates as well - for example Finland has one of the highest suicide rates and for youth suicides Iceland has the highest of all OECD.

More Aussies smoke weed than all other OECD countries



A new report by the OECD shows that more Australians smoke weed than people from any other OECD countries with 15% of the population between the ages 15 to 64 reported to have smoked weed in the past year(2001- latest data). Right after the Aussies were Kiwis with 13%, and Americans with 11%. It's apparent that speaking English makes you smoke weed alot or atleast more because the five countries out of the top 6 were all English speaking countries- Canada 11%, UK 10% - the only exception was Czech Republic with 11%. The lowest countries were Korea and Japan, where its strictly prohibited - with jail sentences starting from six months even if you have weed substance in your urine- with 0.1%.
Suprisingly the Netherlands, where weed is legal only 6%, which is only average level.

If you consider the whole world, Papa New Guinea holds the number one position with 29.5% of its population smoking doobies, Micronesia Federation State is just off with 29.1% although these are 1995 records.

And to suprise of many, Jamaica only 11% have been reported to have smoked weed, which is comparable to that of the UK.
In Vanuatu - which was praised for having the highest "happy scores" from Stuart Jefferies column - only 0.1% of people smoked weed in 1997.

And of all the world, the country with the least weed smokers, yes indeed the police country where its not even allowed to chew gum in public, Singapore with 0.004...

Birthday meaning

Your Birthdate: August 1

You are a natural born leader, even if those leadership talents haven't been developed yet.
You have the power and self confidence to succeed in life, and your power grows daily.
Besides power, you also have a great deal of creativity that enables you to innovate instead of fail.
You are a visionary, seeing the big picture instead of all of the trivial little details.

Your strength: Your supreme genius

Your weakness: Your inappropriate sensitivity

Your power color: Gold

Your power symbol: Star

Your power month: January


As much as I want to say this is full of crap, I am amazed at its accuracy... my god I must be completely "norm"al.

===============
because of my curiosity, just cracked the code- the birthday meaning does not have anything to do with the combination of your birth month and day- it completely relies on your birth day. Everyone who is born on the 1st- may it be January, February, .... all have the same outcome.

혼외 출산

경남일보 오늘일자 신문에서 김용현 저출산고령사회정책본부장이 혼외출산이 장려를 강조하였다.
그에 의하면 "고령화속도가 늦은 미국이나 프랑스는 혼외출산율이 높다. 프랑스의 경우 40% 정도가 혼외출산이다. 가정을 이루지 않고도 자유롭게 아이를 낳는 것이다. 우리도 혼외출산에 대한 일반적인 인식을 바꾸고 사회적으로도 미혼모의 복지, 아이의 인권 등을 강화해야 한다."

물론, 그가 혼외 출산이 증가되어야 한다고 주장하는 것은 아니고, 혼외 출산에서 태어난 아이에 대한 인식을 바꿔야 한다는 것이다. 그러나, 다시 잘 생각하면, 혼외 출산이 높은 나라의 인용을 하며, 결혼하지 않더라도 자유롭게 아이를 낳을 수 환경을 조성하여야 함을 주장하고 있다고 볼 수 있다.

나 역시 그와 같은 생각이며, 더 나아가 기본적으로 한국에서 결혼이라는 제도에 대한 재검토가 필요하다고 본다.
중요한 것은, 우리나라의 이와 같은 이념, 사고가치관의 변화의 속도이다.
불과 몇년전만해도 이와 같은 생각은 절대 통하지도 않을 뿐만 아니라, 정부 관계자가 말한다는 것은 상상도 못했을 것이다. 그러나, 이제 출산과 고령화의 문제 등 사회 문제들이 생기자, 사람들의 생각도 빨리 바뀌게 되는 것이다. 물론 심정은 그만큼 빠르게 바뀌기는 어려울 것이다. 즉, 생각으로는 이것도 옳을 수 있다고 받아들일 수는 있지만, 아마 심정적으로 아직 "저 사람은 결혼 안하고 아이를 혼자 낳아서 키웁니다"라는 말을 들었을 때 대부분의 사람들은 아직 부정적인 시각을 가지고 볼 것이다.

그러나 대단하다, 한국의 변화하는 속도는, 그리고 앞으로 5년 10년간 어떠한 (사상적인/시각의) 변화들이 이루어질지 솔직히 감이 잘 안잡히나, 미래가 결코 어둡지많은 않은듯 하다.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Stuart Jefferies Missing!

I don't know what happened to Stuart Jefferies of the Guardian... for his last column was last year 28th october... and then poof~ he was gone.
Was he fired? vanished?
what is worse is that right before he vanished from the guardian comments, his last columns were about how "Stuart Jefferies has been deleted. You will now be taking orders from Stuart 2.0" and about how he's been fired etc....

so? what has happened?
Does anyone know?
Stuart, we want you back~ no we need your cynical surreal columns back into our pathetic lives so we can atleast look foward to snickering at your wit.
Come back~!

=======================
postscrift

after three days I've written this and 4 months since his last acticle, SJ is back.
Unfortunately not with his columns but one of his cultural/book investigations... coincidence???

to blog or not to blog

I've just had a thought.
Why do I even have this?
Is this some sort of exhibitionist characteristic of mine showing itself off?
Or is this a plea into the anonymous world, some sort of an exit I can free myself in?

I was going through my "stat", which actually to my surprise has so many information inside it that I was amazed - although you only get info in the last week or so.
whichever the case, what I've realized is that approximately 25 people come into this site- well actually not 25 people because it might be the same person twice in that week, and I am sure I am also counted atleast twice a week.
of those people only 60% spend less than 5 seconds here, which means they don't read it. only 27% or so spend more than 5 minutes here, which means that they read it, but I dunno how many of those are mine.

So in other words, approximately 5~7 people read my blog a week, maybe even less, and then gets me thinking, actually that is more than I thought, cuz I thought NO ONE READS IT, this because NO ONE COMMENTS ON ANYTHING. I mean like, give me something to work with here. leave me a sign, did you like what I wrote or you think its crap or what?

I guess this is being too greedy. Now the space to post my thoughts is not suffice and I am longing for some sort of feedback from it I guess. - yes, thus is my pseudonym insatiable..

and yes this was one of the logs that you can skip in 5 seconds.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Earth temperature will rise 4C in 100 years

Last Friday in Paris, scientist from all over the world, comissioned by the UN have reported that indeed due to human influences earth's temperature will rise 4C (maybe up to 6C) in 2100. As noted in the guardian, "A 4C rise or higher this century would see the world warm almost as much in 100 years as it did during the 15,000 years since the end of the last ice age."

guardian article: Worse than we thought

What +4C will mean
Loss of food production
Droughts. African crops slump 15% to 35%. Global production falls 10%

Increased flooding
Sea levels rise by up to 59cm. Bangladesh and Vietnam worst hit, along with coastal cities such as London, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Calcutta and Karachi. 1.8m people at risk from coastal flooding in Britain alone

Melting ice
Half the Arctic tundra at risk. Europe loses 80% of alpine glaciers. West Antarctic ice sheet and the Greenland ice sheet start to melt

More disease
Mosquitoes thrive, exposing 80 m more people to malaria in Africa; 2.5bn more exposed to dengue fever

Loss of land species
20-50% of land species threatened with extinction

Water shortages
Fresh water availability halved in southern Africa and Mediterranean

Hurricanes more powerful Wind strengths increasing 15-25%. Great damage to infrastructure

If you are interested some tips to prevent this from happening
Stop global warming site
Climate Crisis site
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Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study
Another remarkable thing is that AEI(american enterprise institute), a interest group funded by big corporate companies such as Exxon tried to lobby the scientists to contend this report, and go against its finding. AEI offered $10,000 each.

Similarily there is the CEI (Corporate Enterprise Institute) that have been producing TV-spots that say "carbon dioxcide they call it pollution.... we call it life"



Unfortunately, I am afraid people actually believe this is true.
I cannot imagine what other truths the big corporate companies have hidden from us.

Replies to the global warming warning

These are just some of the replies to the e-mail where I have warned people about the dangers of global warming and on the report published last friday
titled: "earth temperature to rise 4C by 2100"

a friend
"I think its too late to do something
and the only thing we can do ourselves for the next generations to come ,
is to not make any more next generations..."

another friend
"London = Ibiza!!!!
whoeeeee!!! "

and similarly
"what about the chances that I can grow pineapple, papaya and mango in my backyard soon?"


my dad
"What we'd better dying earlier than the year 2100, Develope mountain side than sea side
What else? .. to stop earth from warming. Don't smoke and use more refrigrators."

and the grand finale
...
my uncle replied
"your father's blood pressue will rise 4mmHg in a year unless you marry somebody"

(not translated- original text)

Monday, February 05, 2007

Forgive me father for I have sinned, (and desparately need to tell someone about it!)

One of the most important aspect of Catholicism is the idea of confessing to your sins and seeking forgiveness.
The more and more I think about this, I think its quite an attractive idea.

It is not because of the fact that you confess and then you have a big chance of the "sin" being relived, but in the sense that you can get whatever it is, really everything off your chest.
yeah, I know you might dislike the part where they make everything into sins that need to be forgiven, but the fact of the matter is, many people really need to share their experiences - in sin manners or otherwise - to ease the magnitude of it.
You need someone to tell you, its alright, its okay and other people do that, have done that etc. But also, you just need to tell someone. Once out, it doesn't bother you much.

I think the whole idea of talking to a psychologist works because of the talking bit, not necessarily needing someone to analyze the substance of what you're talking about. The priests do exactly that. Weekly confessions are weekly "free" psychologist meetings, if you may, although they will prescribe different remedies to "cure/relieve" you of your problems.

Of course the other option will be to talk to friends, the only problem is that they usually have opinions, can be judgemental, or tell others and most important of all just do not listen as much or as well as our other two options.