How come Norway and Sweden don't worry about terrorism?

[Frank Cannon]

Heck, even Denmark doesn't seem too worried about it.

How come the people in these countries aren't out buying duct tape and plastic?

How come they don't have color-coded terror levels every day?

How come they can take shampoo and shave cream on airplanes?

How come they can wake up in the morning and not be reminded on the morning news shows that they could DIE HORRIBLY AT ANY MINUTE?

I'm kinda thinking that I want what Norway and Sweden have.

[AtLiberty]

1. How come they have health care for all their citizens?

???

[Union Thug]

6. From an old Swede to me and my dad....

"Your tax dollars buy your citizens a B-2 bomber rotting in a desert hangar. Ours provides healthcare and education."

He spent two months in the hospital for a heart condition and walked out with a bill of about 300$

[Frank Cannon]

11. Yep. And you know what?

If we spent all the money we spent on those rotting B-2s on health care and education, just about EVERY DOLLAR would be RE-spent at your local Arby's, K-Mart, Goodyear, landscaper, etc.--the employees of whom would, in turn, RE-spend those dollars again at the local Arby's, K-Mart, Goodyear, landscaper, etc.

Instead of having it all hemorrhage away into offshore companies, or just lost completely (like the billions that Halliburton has just (oops!) misplaced!).

It's just so sad.

[KittyWampus]

12. Sweden has a growing NeoNazi presence that targets Muslims so your

romantized view of those countries is not accurate to reality.

Yes, Socialized medicine is my ideal for the US.

But putting Sweden and other countries on a pedestal is less than wise.

[treestar]

37. So does the US?

It's how they are viewed that would be the point.

[Quantess]

46. Really?

Do have any evidence for your specious claim?

[leftofthedial]

2. they are socialist countries

not capitalist kleptocracies ruled by fascists

[Selatius]

16. They are parliamentary social democracies, not socialist countries

Private ownership of major resources are still allowed. Certain sectors of the economy have been nationalized (e.g. health care).

It's true public ownership of resources are tremendously influenced by socialist thought, but their economies are still largely privately run outside several key sectors administered by the state, and they boast standards of living that compare to the US and even exceed the US in many instances (political participation, health care, public education, crime rates, etc.).

However, the fact remains they are not socialist economies in large part. Rather, it's more accurate to say that, like the US, they are mixed economies but that they tend to borrow more from socialist thought than the US has ever done.

I would also say systems such as proportional representation have allowed multiple choices at the ballot box, not just two damn choices. The result is voices that advocate socialized health care or socialized college education are also heard. This simply isn't true of the Democratic Party, and it never will be in the US barring a constitutional convention adopting proportional representation.

I have never read of any large piece of land being socialized by the people for any extended period of time without it ending because they got crushed by Bolsheviks or got crushed by fascists and their capitalist big business supporters threatened by the notion of people exercising their right to use resources for the public good instead of private profit.

[leftofthedial]

19. imprecise language on my part

I intended "socialistic"

key components of their economies are socialized.

[Rude Horner]

3. Because Norway and Sweden

mind their own business, and don't try to tell the rest of the world what to do.

Wouldn't that be nice? I could go for living in a country that had some sanity.

[madokie]

4. They have a way and that is, they mind their own business. IMO

the terra'ist didn't hate us as a person but as a country. They were able to differentiate between the two, I'm not so sure anymore though.

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. Because Norway and Sweden...

(and Denmark, too, for that matter) don't have to worry about blowback from decades or even centuries of imperialist foreign policy, unlike the US and UK? :shrug:

[SoCalDem]

17. Yep.. empire has its consequences

and of course if you mid your own business and don't make enemies, you are likely to be left alone..

[sakabatou]

7. Or Switzerland

[The River]

8. I Sometimes Wish

that my great grandparents had never left.
One from each country,
they met in America.

I wonder if my DNA could claim the right of return?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. You could claim a heritage visa if your PARENTS came from there,

but not anyone any farther back. I know. I checked. (It's grandparents in my case.)

I could have gotten a German visa with a grandparent, but unfortunately, my grandmother missed being born in Germany by a couple of month.

[KittyWampus]

9. Those countries have racial terrorism and a growing Neo-Nazi presence

as does Germany, Holland....

Muslims face most racism in Sweden
Published: 25th October 2005 19:09 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=2363

Muslims are exposed to the most racial harassment in Sweden, according to a new report from the Board of Integration.

Seven out of ten reports of ethnic discrimination came from people with a Muslim background, and almost 40% of those questioned in the survey said they had witnessed verbal abuse directed at Muslims.

The report, Racism and Xenophobia in Sweden, also showed an increasing intolerance of immigration.

"If you look at the whole period from 1999 to 2004 there has been a significant increase in the number of people who want to close Sweden's borders to immigration, from 35% to 45.5%," said the report's author, José Alberto Diaz.

But the picture painted by the report is complex. While one in five respondents said that they were "negatively inclined towards people who they did not consider belonged in Sweden", the support for anti-immigration political parties, such as the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) and the National Democrats (Nationaldemokraterna) is declining.

One in four said they could consider voting for such a party, down from almost one in three in 1999.

Two thirds of those questioned rejected the notion that Sweden is a racist country, and fewer people then five years ago believe that racism is increasing. In 1999, 56% said they believed racism was rising, but by 2004 this had decreased to 46%.

[KittyWampus]

10. Sweden/Germany's Neo Nazis reaping electoral gains- they cleaned up

their image to appear more respectable. But they're still racists filled with hatred and xenophobia... and are spreading their message.

Europe's extremists make electoral gains
By Liz Fekete
27 September 2006, 2:00pm
Electoral gains for extreme-Right parties in Sweden and Germany are cause for concern for anti-racists in the UK .

Increasingly, government policy on issues such as asylum, immigration and the rights of ethnic minorities is being shaped at a European level. With xenophobic and Islamophobic electoral parties now a permanent feature in European politics, no victory for the extreme Right, wherever in Europe, should go un-noted in the UK.

Developments in Scandinavia, where the Sweden Democrats (SD) made an unexpected electoral breakthrough in southern Sweden, are particularly alarming. An arc of extremist intolerance now spreads from Denmark and Norway - where the Danish People's Party (DPP) and the Progress Party are respectively electorally strong - to southern Sweden. The 'Swedes First' campaign of the SD proved popular, and it has quadrupled its number of representatives on local councils from fifty in 2002 to approximately 200 today. The increase was particularly strong in the southern regions of Scania and Blekinge, where the SD is represented on all but one of the region's councils, and is now regarded as the as the 'kingmaker' in local politics. The party's biggest gains came in the port city of Landskrona, where the SD polled over 22 per cent of the vote, increasing its councillors from four to twelve.

The scale of the SD's success comes as a shock. Once an overtly neo-Nazi party, it sought to transform itself into a Swedish version of the DPP. The comparison with the Islamophobic and xenophobic DPP is not inapt. Scania and Blekinge are geographically close to Denmark, and the SD's local leader Sten Andersson has stressed the role the DPP have played in teaching the SD how to become a major party without being accused of racism or labelled 'Nazi'. And the xenophobia of the Danish debate over immigration has struck a chord in Scania - where Malmö and Landskrona rank behind Stockholm as the cities with large immigrant communities. According to Searchlight's Graeme Atkinson, southern Sweden 'is rural, very conservative and rather God-fearing'. Though it has been a popular fishing-ground for anti-immigration politics, the scale of the far Right's electoral breakthrough was unprecendented.

In comparison, the fact that, in Germany, the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) achieved 7.3 per cent of the vote and now has six seats in the eastern Baltic coastal state (which borders Poland) of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was not so surprising. Neo-nazis have long been active in the economically depressed and politically marginalised East. As Gideon Botsch, from the Moses Mendelssohn Centre for European-Jewish Studies at the University of Potsdam, put it: 'We had feared it would happen, so we weren't surprised.'

Largely because of the decline in manufacturing industry, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has the highest unemployment rate in the country (nearly twice the national average) and many young people have fled West. This, reports Searchlight, was the second regional breakthrough for a now highly professionalised NPD, which grabbed over 9 per cent and of the vote and twelve seats in the Saxon regional assembly in September 2004. Furthermore, the extreme Right as a whole now has seats in four regional legislatures (the German People's Union is represented in Brandenburg and Bremen).

The implications of the extreme Right's gains in Germany need to be considered here in the UK. Educationalists and universities, in particular, should think carefully before organising trips for young people to areas where the NPD have been targeting schools, infiltrating parent's associations, kindergartens, sports clubs and organising youth activities such as children's festivals and barbecues. In several Baltic villages, the NPD has become an integral part of civil society, providing social services, running businesses and organising discos.

A synopsis of racial violence in the eastern German states is provided in Islamophobia, xenophobia and the climate of hate, issue 57 of the European Race Bulletin. Liz Fekete further examines the influence of anti-immigrant parties in European politics in Race & Class, October 2006.
The Institute of Race Relations is precluded from expressing a corporate view: any opinions expressed are therefore those of the authors.

[tocqueville]

18. this is true but not representative

BTW it's nothing new either, maybe a bit more inflammated today. But that doesn't mean that the vast majority of Europeans live in fear THE SAME WAY a lot of Americans do. I think that the levels of fear of a terrorist attack in the US and Europe are about the same, but in daily life it isn't a preoccupation here. And the picture presented in the European MSM has nothing to do with the constant terror remindings in the US specially on TV.

[spanone]

13. Their leaders probably don't say 'Bring It On'.

[tocqueville]

14. that applies to all Europe, report from over here

#1 people are not too worried, but on their watch
#2 duct tape and plastic are reserved to home improvement or kinky sex games
#3 color code terror levels exist but mentioned twice a year
#4 shampoo etc were banned a while, but the ban has been lifted
#5 morning news are more about what's happening and horrible imminent death isn't part of it

remember that some of those countries have been subjected to major islamist terror attacks (France, Spain, UK),
other terror attacks (IRA, ETA etc...) and most of them have had minor attacks or have foiled plenty of plots and arrested REAL terrorists for REAL facts like possession of assault weapons and explosives. Around 250 terrorists are sitting in European jails, convicted after a fair trial.

Most of European countries are engaged in military actions against terrorism like in Afghanistan or are present into theaters where terrorism is active like Lebanon and some African countries. Several European countries are present in Iraq too, but that mostly applies for the UK.

Why is the situation different ?

my explanation is the following :

- historically European have ties to and understand the psyche of countries threatened by Islamism and have large LOYAL Muslim populations through immigration. 80% of those immigrants are completely secular.

- historically, European countries have dealt with attacks on their own territories, including terrorist attacks
European countries have understood that fearmongering and reduction of civil liberties is permitting terrorism to win, even if security measures have to be taken temporarily.

- Michael Moore's assessment in "Bowling for Columbine" that the American psyche is historically paranoiac is probably correct. The Pilgrim founded paranoia is stil present.

[TahitiNut]

15. What's a terrorist compared to lutefisk??

You want terror? Just face a plate of lutefisk!



Lutefisk
Lutefisk er i grunnen en pussig ting. Hvem i all verden fant på at det måtte være godt å tørke fisken for så å lute den, vanne den ut og servere den med brunost, sirup , bacon og stuede grønne erter ?

Ingen vet sikkert hvordan lutefisken oppstod. En av mytene er athjeller med tørrfisk tok fyr på . Brannen ble slukket med vann, men fisken falt ned i asken som jo er en form for lut. Og så fant kanskje noen på å koke fisken for å sjekke om den var helt uspiselig, og det var den jo ikke. Selv om noen kanskje vil si det ser sånn ut.

Tilberedning
Lutefisk kan kokes i nesten tørr kjele. Den avgir så mye væske at vann er overflødig. Kokes den for lenge i vann, vil den dessuten bare løse seg opp og forsvinne i kokevannet. Den kan også kokes i langpanne i ovn .

Servering
Server fisken rykende varm med mandel- eller ringerikspoteter og det tilbehøret du foretrekker. Ertestuing, bacon, ribbefett , sennep, brunost, sirup eller lefse - valgene er utallige. Server gjerne flere varianter.

Liker du ikke at fisken skjelver på tallerkenen, kan du drysse den med grovt salt et par timer før koking. Skyll så fisken i kaldt vann og la være å salte den igjen før tilberedning. Beregn minimum 500 g fisk per person og 2 ss salt per kg fisk.

[tocqueville]

24. Norwegian lutefisk is disgusting

Real Lutfisk shall be served with white sauce, salt and pepper, boiled potatoes and green peas.

Lutfisk with bacon, lard, mustard, brown cheese and syrup should be forbiden. BTW it is forbidden in Sweden.

Sweden is of course the king of surströmming

Caught in the months of May and June, processors immerse the fish for a day in brine and then decapitate and clean it. Next they stack it in barrels, trundling it out into the summer sun and left there for 24 hours to get the fermenting process started. An inch or two of space is left at the top of each barrel so that any gas formed during the fermentation can accumulate with out causing an explosion.

Put into a cool storage room, the herring ferment at a slower rate. As they do, their aroma grows progressively stronger, and only the most acute nose can determine the precise point at which they are ready for canning.

Among those who like surstromming best, and its fans are many, there's the belief that the contents of a can left for a year at a temperature of 68̊ F. actually improve; the can will have begun to swell, and at its puffiest must be opened gingerly, like a bottle of champagne.

Swedes eat ripe surstromming with paper-thin hard bread and boiled potatoes, usually an almond-shaped variety that comes from the north. It has a sharp, cutting taste. Sometimes, they drink milk with it, but beer and aquavit more often accompany the dish. Some Swedes down it without a second thought to its smell; others, in order to partake of it at all, first have to rinse it in purifying soda water.

Sales of surstromming are on the increase in Sweden, but its future as an export item is, predictably, dim. Although 800 cans of it used to be exported annually to Hollywood when a Swedish movie colony could still be found there, U.S. customs officials have since come to view it with suspicion, despite its proven nontoxicity. Moreover, the product doesn’t always travel well. Only recently a Swede found this out. Thinking to amaze an important New York client and the assembled board of directors with so bizarre a food, he produced the swollen can he had carried all the way from Sweden in his luggage and dramatically laid it on the table. At that moment, the can exploded.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Nowadays surströmming is considered as a WMD. Which it has always been. Open a couple of cans of surströmming in the NYC subway, the stench will make people faint by hundreds. This would create the biggest terror alert in the US since 9/11. I hope no terroruists are reading this post.

Surströmming ska ätas med finess
Om en vecka är det dags för surströmmingspremiär. Matredaktionen reste till Ulvön söder om Örnsköldsvik för att få en försmak av vad som komma skall.

Recept

• Mandelpotatispaj
• Rödlöksmarmelad

På Surbistron i Ulvöhamn har man kunnat äta surströmming ända sedan i juni. Bistron är en lekstugeliknande byggnad inredd med åtta sittplatser och en chiffonjé i trä som gömmer själva surströmmingsbuffén. Potatis i ett skåp, kyld surströmming i ett annat och alla tillbehören i skålar i en utdragslåda.

Ruben Madsen, surströmmingsinläggare och krögare, visar den som behöver hur den lokala delikatessen bäst avnjuts, "habituterna" klarar sig själva bland strömmingar och tillbehör. Utländska turister som kommer med båten till det pittoreska fiskeläget på Höga kusten är ofta mer öppna för att smaka surströmming än svenskar som alltid fått höra att strömmingen luktar illa.

Strömmingen som serveras är hans egen tillverkning, som alltid säljs lagrad, därför är den njutbar redan i juni när årets surströmming normalt läggs in på burk för att lagras till slutet av augusti.

Förr fanns det åtskilliga lokala strömmingsinläggare på Ulvön. Nu är det bara två: Ruben Madsen och Julius Söderberg, bägge med liten, hantverksmässig produktion.

- Det är som att göra vin, menar saltör Ruben Madsen, ordförande i Surstsrömmingsakademien och vältalig pr-man för surströmmingskulturen vid sidan av sitt jobb som clown med engagemang runt om i världen.

Surströmming ska ätas med finess - ska man ha surströmmingsfest dukar man upp alla tillbehören: hac­kad lök, dill, tomatskivor och bröd så bordet ser lockande ut, föreslår han.

Potatisen kokas medan gästerna sätter sig ner och umgås: dricker kanske sherry och bryter lite tunnbröd och äter med västerbottensost eller "blana", en kräm av messmör och kanel. Först när potatisen är klar hämtar man fram surströmmmingsburken som gärna kan ha stått sista halvtimmen i frysen.

- Vinkla burken i 45 grader och punktera den i överkant. Det ska höras ett rejält pys om strömmingen är färdigjäst. Sedan öppnas burken lugnt och stilla.

- Det blir ett helt annat scenario, tycker Ruben Madsen.

När man rensat strömmingen på tallriken tas renset bort från bordet.

På Surbistron är detta fiffigt löst genom en behållare med lock infälld i bordet där man lägger strömmingsrenset efter hand.

När det gäller tillbehören är Ruben Madsen öppen för det mesta: rödlöksmarmelad är extra gott, ett tunt lager äppelmos på brödet, sojasås, citronpeppar, lingonsylt eller rödbetor. Tomatskivor är bra att avsluta med - och ser vackert ut. I stället för gräddfil serverar surbistron turkisk yoghurt, perfekt i sin syra och lite tjockare konsistens.

Bintje och King Edward kan vara väl så gott som mandelpotatis och rosévin är ett alternativ till öl.

Som avslutning serveras något som helt bryter av - på Surbistron en chokladpralin med fikon och konjak.

- Det som är festligt och en njutning kan inte vara fel, säger Ruben Madsen. De gamla stötarna få säga vad del vill, det är som en del tycker att det skulle vara en merit att begränsa sig.

Intresset för surströmming väcktes sedan han lyckats köpa ett hus i Ulvöhamn. Lokala inläggare berättade om tillverkningen. Efter ett misslyckat försök i det alltför varma duschrummet sökte Ruben Madsen vetenskapliga fakta om den mikrobiologiska processen och lärde sig styra den.

Nu är det kvalitetsströmming och hantverksmässig inläggning han satsar på, i lyxburkar i påkostad presentförpackning. Men de allra finaste, 400 burkar av "surströmmingen tryffel", är inte till salu, den lägger han undan till mamma och för speciella tillfällen.

I Hötorgshallen i Stockholm ska den internationella pressklubben nästa vecka bjudas på svensk surströmmingskultur i form av tapas, en lagom liten smakportion med bröd, smör, potatis, surströmming och rödlök samt en doft av dill. En idé som Ruben Madsen också tänker ha på Surbistron nästa sommar, perfekt för den som aldrig prövat förr.

Här några tips på tillbehör till surströmmingsfesten. Mandelpotatispajen är också mycket god i annat sammanhang, garnerad med löjrom eller annan rom och klickar av gräddfil.

Berit Lyregård



never try to kiss the girl on the picture above
http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=548&a=448917&previousRenderType=1

[TahitiNut]

43. Well, it sure ain't something 'Marius et Jeanette' has on the menu.

(On Avenue George V ... near the Crazy Horse across from the Hotel George V. Might not be there anymore, though.)

[Poppyseedman]

20. Denmark ?

Theo Van Gogh may disagree if he could

[Spider Jerusalem]

26. Theo van Gogh was from the Netherlands.

Dutch, not Danish.

[Poppyseedman]

28. Oops, my bad.

Got my cold places mixed up.

[Spider Jerusalem]

33. Not cold in the Netherlands--

nor in Denmark, either; both are actually fairly temperate--not much below 35F or so in the winter and not much above 85F or so in the summer.

[Poppyseedman]

34. I live in Florida. Anywhere above the Mason Dixon line is "Cold"

65 degrees and below is winter to me. :shrug:

[and-justice-for-all]

22. Because they are nations of REALIST...nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

23. Because they're populated by adults with functioning brains.

[upi402]

25. they must hate our freedom too

:shrug:

[OllieLotte]

27. The United States is much more involved in world affairs.

Whether or not you agree with the involvement of the US in much of the world. There is little doubt that it makes us a target for terrorism. I personally believe that we should be heavily involved, but many would argue that it is better to "mind our own business".

[tocqueville]

30. of course it plays a major role for those countries

but on the other hand a minor event like the Danish cartoons could trigger an attack. And Denmark has lost a LOT of money for that story.

At the same time fact is that other major powers like the UK, France and Germany, heavily involved in world affairs don't deal hysterically with the terrorist threat either.

[Truthiness Inspector]

29. They have problems too

In Sweden, look up Malmo.
In Denmark, look up the cartoon fiasco.
Not sure about Norway.

[KittyWampus]

32. France- look up riots

[stevedeshazer]

31. My heritage is Swede-Finn

Nevertheless,

Skandinaviska länder är en modellera för effektiv regering, när de jämförs till amerikanregeringen.

[madrchsod]

36. i`ll have to get out my dictionary

if only i would have made my grandmother teach me swedish..

[madrchsod]

35. well...maybe it is these people

actually they are finns but they the are crazy enough to join the swedes





or this - sweden`s secret biological weapon


that`s fermented herring

[bikebloke]

38. Don't forget these guys.

Leningrad Cowboys



The greatest rock band in the world...even if most of the world hasn't heard of them.

[omega minimo]

39. HEY, WHERE'D HE GO?

[Cleita]

40. Also, how come their economies are better than ours and they

have no homeless, no elderly without heat in the winter, or citizens without access to health care. I'll bet it's because they are social democracies.

[leesa]

41. Well, duh. Maybe because they don't invade and blow up other countries

and steal their stuff all the time.

[mmonk]

42. They must not have many freedoms

since the terrorists hate us for our freedoms.

[Norbu]

44. b/c norway has oil

but that will run out soon too, unless they do their part to talk about algae biofuels, give somebody a nobel prize for algae biofuel research

[Zorra]

45. Because they are not fascist nations. n/t