Lucky Bag of Links for Today

We thought the Japanese had a democracy?
Apparently not.

This puts a lot of the last 50+ years in perspective
Certainly things we have known for long time, but good to seem them diligently compiled in one lucid article.

Moses Hit the Acacia Bark Bong or something
This explains a lot (maybe)

The Happiness of Europeans...
Meaningless nonsense of course. But it surprises me that the Irish are third happiest...
this might explain it:
"The survey shows that trust in society is very, very important. The countries that scored highest for happiness also reported the highest levels of trust in their governments, laws and each other."
So gullibility and a trusting nature are the necessary conditions for achieving happiness are they?