Consider The Source: North Korea Says It's No. 2 In Happiness

By Mark Memmott

Published June 2, 2011 at 9:33 AM EDT

Everybody's happy. (Korean Central News Agency photo released on Jan. 18, 2009, showing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il posing with soldiers.)

Coming from a country where the leader has been referred to as "the son of God" and where the official news agency has reported about a "mysterious natural wonder" involving a halo at Kim Jong Il's birthplace, this probably shouldn't be too much of a shock:

"China is the world's happiest nation, followed by North Korea, according to recently released North Korean government research." ( GlobalPost's The Rice Bowl blog.)

Famine and repression apparently didn't hurt North Korea's standing in the eyes of the "researchers."

And which nation was last in the North Korean "research?"

-- "The American Empire."

(H/T to Marketplace Morning Report.)

Mark Memmott

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.

See stories by Mark Memmott