World's Friendliest Countries: A Rigged Survey???

I found this news article on MSNBC. I must say that I am quite sure that this survey doesn't reflect the ground reality of the state of nations across the world. I say this because I have several questions about the survey. The study was conducted with only 3,100 respondents, in a world of 6 billion people, and several million living as expatriates in various countries this number is just too small to be of consideration. Second even among the nations studied the number of respondents differed. For example only 35 respondents were surveyed in Bahrain (ranked 1), while more than 450 people were surveyed in UK.

The media is calling the results surprising, but I call it fixed for one of the two reasons. Either HSBC has some vested interest in promoting Bahrain as a great country for expatriates or someone among the researchers want to aggressively market Universal Healthcare proposed by Obama Administration. Most of the respondents from Bahrain praised the public healthcare system highly.

World's first Motorcycle Recreated

The world's first motorcycle was manufactured by Daimler and it was made in 1885.... a little over 125 years ago. Though Gottlieb Daimler, the pioneer in automobiles holds the patent to the motorcycle design, it was not him who created the very first motorycle. It was Sylvester Roper, who was employed in the Union Armoury during the U.S. Civil War who built a primitive "motorcycle" as early as 1867. This was a tiny two-cylinder machine powered by steam. On the other hand Daimler's motorcycle was gasoline-driven and had a one-cylinder gasoline powered Otto-cycle engine mounted on a wooden bicycle frame.

Now coming back to my post, Phil, a friend's friend in Australia is such a motorcycle lover and enthusiast that he decided to go ahead and build his own 1885 Daimler. Phil loves collecting motorcycles, specially those with 6 cylinders. One night, whilst staring at his latest Franklin Mint model 1885 Daimler Motorcycle, he had a sudden brainwave. He decided to reproduce a full size working model of it. From then on started the journey of hard work and loads of expenses. And now after 2 years & lots of $$$, the results are stunning as can be seen in the pictures, Phil plans to display this recreation at the Vic & NSW motorcycle shows. I am sure there are lots of motorcycle enthusiasts waiting to catch a glimpse of this machine.

Laugh too much in Australia and you could land in jail

This might sound incredulous but this what happened to one Chris Cocker in Blackburn, Australia. According to a new report on Times of India Cocker was enjoying himself watching a television comedy show on BBC and he laughed so much that he fell off the sofa. The fall created quite a flutter and the noise annoyed the neighbors who complained to the police. And guess what the police did? They promptly arrived and tried to arrest Cocker. When he refused to go with them, the cops used a pepper spray to subdue him and put him behind bars for a night.

I continue to be wonder struck by the actions of people across the world. Private space or rather private insulated-from-everything space is so important to people that they are willing to knock the doors of law enforcers if someone even makes little noise in their vicinity. I hope this kind of rules and law wont come into force in India, if it does... there wont be enough prisons to house arrested "trouble makers".

Strange are the ways of the world indeed.