Spotlight on:

“Freedom is not for free (Seneca, Ep. Mor. 104)”

The Floating Island of Hyperbolic Orbit is a massive, environmentally stunning nation, renowned for its anti-smoking policies. Its compassionate, intelligent population of 3.156 billion enjoy a sensible mix of personal and economic freedoms, while the political process is open and the people's right to vote held sacrosanct.

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent government stops and the rest of society begins, but it juggles the competing demands of Education, the Environment, and Religion & Spirituality. It meets every day to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Menaion. The average income tax rate is 100%. The private sector is almost wholly made up of enterprising fourteen-year-old boys selling lemonade on the sidewalk, although the government is looking at stamping this out.

Citizens are bombarded with advertising from their compulsory minature radios, the police crack down on tax evaders without mercy, the government tries to improve relations with hostile countries by sending gift baskets, and Animal Liberationists are regularly jailed. Crime -- especially youth-related -- is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Hyperbolic Orbit's national animal is the orbit, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its currency is the Hyperbole.

Hyperbolic Orbit is ranked 362nd in the region and 4,281st in the world for Highest Unemployment Rates.