Once upon a time in the kingdom of heaven, God went missing for Six days. Eventually, Michael the Archangel found him, resting on the seventh day. He inquired of God, "where have you been?"

God breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downward through the clouds, "Look Michael, look what I have made. "

Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, "what is it?"

"It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put LIFE on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it is going to be a place of great balance."

"Balance?" inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing to different parts of earth, "For example, Northern Europe will be a place for great opportunity and wealth, while Southern Europe is going to be poor, the Middle East over there will be a hot spot. Over there, I've placed a continent of white people and over there is a continent of black people." God continued pointing to different countries. "This one will be extremely hot and arid while this one will be very cold and covered in ice."

The Archangel, impressed by Gods work, then pointed to a large landmass in the top corner and asked, "what's that one?"

"Ah," said God. "That's Canada, the most glorious place on Earth. There are beautiful mountains, lakes, rivers, streams and an exquisite coastline. The
people from Canada are going to be modest, intelligent, and humorous and
they're going to be found traveling the world. They'll be extremely
sociable, hard-working and high achieving, and they will be known through
out the world as diplomats and carriers of peace. I'm also going to give
them super-human, undefeatable ice hockey players who will be admired and
feared by all who come across them."

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration but then proclaimed "what about
balance, God? You said there would be balance".

God replied wisely. "Wait until you see the loud-mouth bastards I'm putting
next to them."