I wish I was playing right now.

[KAV]

Originally Posted by kozzm0

If being former feudal overlord of Norway and Finland means secondary, I guess Sweden is a secondary state... Norway got its independence just in time to win the race to the South Pole

It's amazing there's any countries at all in Scandinavia, what with all the freezing cold mountains and swamps. I think Amundsen was just tired of the place and was trying to get as far away from it as possible, and ended up at the South Pole.

I'm not Scandinavian but my great-grandfather was from Finland, and he too tried to get as far away from there as possible, but he ended up in Canada which was even worse, so he went to Minnesota which is the coldest, most miserable, swamp-infested place of all, and then he died. Sad story.

OK I'm done lampooning people's countries...

In danger of being arrogant I quote:

N: Norway is the world's best place to live
For the fourth year in a row, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has ranked Norway as having the highest standard of living in the world. The ranking is based largely on average levels of education and income, combined with expected length of lifetime.

The report measured standards of living in 177 countries around the world. Other Nordic countries are also ranked high, with Sweden in second place, Iceland in 7th place, Finland 13th and Denmark 17th.

[Gilly]

Originally Posted by KAV

In danger of being arrogant I quote:

N: Norway is the world's best place to live
For the fourth year in a row, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has ranked Norway as having the highest standard of living in the world. The ranking is based largely on average levels of education and income, combined with expected length of lifetime.

The report measured standards of living in 177 countries around the world. Other Nordic countries are also ranked high, with Sweden in second place, Iceland in 7th place, Finland 13th and Denmark 17th.

Pah! I see your quality living standards and raise you:
highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe
highest acholism problem in Europe
highest drug dependancy in Europe
championes!!!!!

[kozzm0]

Originally Posted by KAV

In danger of being arrogant I quote:

N: Norway is the world's best place to live
For the fourth year in a row, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has ranked Norway as having the highest standard of living in the world. The ranking is based largely on average levels of education and income, combined with expected length of lifetime.

The report measured standards of living in 177 countries around the world. Other Nordic countries are also ranked high, with Sweden in second place, Iceland in 7th place, Finland 13th and Denmark 17th.

I doubt the ranking considers average yearly temperatures, or ratio of mountains and swamps to normal land, in its standard-of-living equation. It also assumes living a long time in Scandinavia is a good thing. I expect the high income is from all those centuries of viking raids.

Eventually all that viking loot will run out, and Scandinavians will either have to start viking again or make more migrations. But they haven't had much luck finding better land. Previous migrations have ended up in glacier-covered Iceland, not-so-green Greenland, giant but still freezing Russia, and as noted above, freezing and just-as-swampy-as-Finland Minnesota. The one migration that really had a chance was Britain, but Alfred the Great foiled that. Other European countries colonized places like Bermuda, Scandinavia colonized Iceland.

Norway is winning a lot of medals at the Olympics, for sure. It's strange how they're winning just about everything except hockey, while Russia is gonna win hockey and nothing else. Norway and Russia must be in cahoots.

[dkwookie]

Apparently Finland was recently overtaken as suicide capital of the world by Japan. The country that gave us the kamikazis proundly reclaim their heritage

[kozzm0]

Originally Posted by dkwookie

Apparently Finland was recently overtaken as suicide capital of the world by Japan. The country that gave us the kamikazis proundly reclaim their heritage

Japan is mountainous country, this illustrates my point about mountains and swamps. Fortunately there are no countries with mountains and swamps in exactly the same place.