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 sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards
through the clouds, "Look Michael, look what I've 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's going to be a great place of balance."

"Balance?" inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing to different parts of Earth, "For example,
Northern Europe will be a place of 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 land
mass in the top corner and asked, "What's that one?"

"Ah," said God. "That's Canada, the most glorious place on Earth.
There's beautiful mountains, lakes, rivers, streams and an exquisite
coast-line. 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 throughout 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 will be BALANCE!"

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