Finnish Him!

Today we’re talking about Finland.

Finland is so hot right now! Number one in education, chock-full of beautiful, athletic people, close to the top of the Happiness Index, boatloads of reindeer, world-class infrastructure, dominant in all those economic/health/quality of life categories; the Finns are absolutely crushin’ it.

How do they do it? What are their secrets? 

Finland is just crushin’ it these days! Flag via CIA Factbook, so don’t do anything weird with it.

This of course should be at the top of every U.S. politician’s agenda (figuring out how to co-opt things and ideas from other countries in a way that is beneficial to us) but it’s not easy to admit when you’ve been outhustled, outmaneuvered and outcoached. The truth is, we’re being out-America’d.

It’s time to put the pride aside America. Time to head to Helsinki, flat-billed MLB hats in hand, and say, “Alright, how’d you do it?” Better we do this now as opposed to a Kent Brockman-esque welcoming of our new Finnish overlords in 2085. “Hail, Finns!”

Foreign Policy Ideas: Greenland

I recall making a wager with a roommate (the legendary, roommate hall of fame CW) in college that there was no sort of civilization currently happening in Greenland. For some reason I imagined it to be an uninhabitable frozen wasteland, abandoned long ago and left to the polar bears and ice wolves or whatnot. How we arrived at this specific wager I cannot recall, other than to say you discuss a great many things when you’re in college (drinking Miller Hi-Life).

Of course I could not have been more wrong. There are indeed people living in Greenland. Not only are there people (more than 56,000 at last count), there are schools, hospitals, at least one soccer field and even a university!

That people can survive in such ridiculous conditions as Greenland is nothing less than a triumph of the human spirit that should be celebrated, and more importantly; co-opted, extracted and somehow used for our personal gain.

Foreign Policy Ideas: North Korea

This is a new series where we throw out some ideas on how to approach the always complex, thorny world of foreign relations. We’ll look at things from an American perspective, cuz we’re an American blog and we do things the American way. If you don’t like it you can geeeet out!

Today’s Topic: North Korea

North Korea continues to be a thorn in the side of planet earth. On the world stage, NK is that guy on the fringe of your group who no one likes but everyone placates because he’s crazy and owns weapons. Unfortunately in this case, we’re dealing with a crazy friend with access to nukes, and who also has many millions of neglected, innocent dependents.