adrian posted this article in the subject blog and i really enjoyed it so wanted to share it with you all (that is, if “you all” is actually anyone at all). link is here.
some really interesting maps on this one. i found that australia and russia seem to be on almost opposite ends of the spectrum in nearly every case. in a lot of these maps, australia is well up there in the, lets say awesome, section of the spectrum, such as our high economic equality, we’re pretty welcoming to foreigners (although you wouldn’t think that now with all those awful “Stop the boat people” ads going around), we’re one of the the best places to be born and apparantly we are one of the top countries to be a mother in 😀 although we are pretty emotional (although not as emotional as america.) but i guess that contributes to why we all feel very loved (yes, one of the maps showed that we feel the most loved compared to many other countries. here’s a virtual hug to everyone in the blue/sad countries on the love map)
a funny one was the russian guy who speculated that the US would break up into 4 separate countries run by canada, mexico, russia and europe. and who knew there were so many atheists in china?? but that time lapse map of the earth from space was really cool. i’d love to visit one of those icy countries. yeah, it would be cold, but it would also be pretty cool (see what i did there?) and i’ve always wanted to build a proper snowman.
the one that’s really scary is just how far some of hamas’s rockets can reach out into israel. i’ve stood on the border of israel and gaza and it’s not a happy place. the towns along the edges of the border have a bomb shelter every 3 houses in each street. what a terrifying way to live. (wow, that just got pretty political, didn’t mean to go there. the map did it! blame the map!)
what i did find really interesting (and here’s me getting slightly political again, sorry!!) was how we had one of the highest percentage of tolerance towards homosexuality (even higher than america) but we still have yet to legalise gay marriage!!! there was a pretty high number of countries who have already (we can worry about the ones who’ve ruled it punishable by death another time) but isn’t it about time that we legalise it too?? IMO we need to take a leaf out of New Zealand’s book and make it legal. but that’s enough political stuff from me. i feel pretty strongly about this but you don’t need to suffer through my rantings. but i was happy to see that we weren’t in the highest percentage of smoking per person so at least aussies (well, some at least) are getting something right.
lets lighten the mood up a bit before signing off, how crazy is this map!!!!
