Iceland’s government approved on Monday the commercial hunting of whales this year, a move that drew quick criticism from conservationists.
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Iceland is the best place to live in the world, a study has found. Measuring aspects of wellbeing such as life-expectancy, education and living standards puts the country top of the international happiness scale . . . .
The inalienable right to hunt whales, despite the Bjorkness. Hunting whales? It’s Icelandish!
Comment by dicentra on 5/19 @ 9:16 pm #
They get all their energy from geothermal sources, too, which is 100% guilt-free energy. Why wouldn’t they be happier than us petroleum-burning neanderthals?
Comment by charles austin on 5/19 @ 9:23 pm #
Do they have open borders?
Comment by The Lost Dog on 5/19 @ 10:06 pm #
Iceland also has the most beautiful blondes in the history of the universe…
Comment by happyfeet on 5/19 @ 10:11 pm #
I picture an icy smurf village. All I know is didn’t they get all obnoxious with the Bobby Fischer thing? I remember reading when that was all happening that they hate us. This made me feel very sad.
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 5/19 @ 10:45 pm #
Iceland also has the most beautiful blondes in the history of the universe…
I’ve heard that they’re very…welcoming, too, supposedly because they realized the problems associated with inbreeding a long time ago and made it socially acceptable to grab any foreign sperm that happened to wander in.
No idea if that’s true.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 5/19 @ 10:55 pm #
Uh oh. I was going to go to Iceland, but now . . .
Lets just say that when I bathe at the Jersey Shore, I’m often been mistaken for a Narwhal.
Comment by maggie katzen on 5/19 @ 11:02 pm #
funny, Alec, I just transferred an album of Maori things yesterday. but no All Black Haka.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 5/19 @ 11:09 pm #
“Alec, I just transferred an album of Maori things yesterday. but no All Black Haka”
You really must see the Kapa O Pango Haka from before when they banned the ceremonial throat slitting at the end. Tana Umaga lead those. Also, the Hakas lead by Hosea Gear are nifty, with the spitting and hissing and wailing.
I played Irish schoolboys Rugby with several fellows who went on to cap for Ireland, and one notable future British Lion. We played a few friendlies against visiting NZ schoolboys teams. The Haka, in person and at 10 metres or so is something to behold. They used to place a wrapped totem at the half line immediately before lining up for the Karite, Karite! Haka. Rumor was, the totem was a shrunken head.
Comment by holygoat on 5/19 @ 11:26 pm #
happyfeet,
I spent a year in Iceland when I was in the USAF back in the 80s, and I found Icelanders to be split pretty evenly with regards to Americans. Only half of them hate us.
Comment by Ric Locke on 5/19 @ 11:29 pm #
Bobby Fisher is a poisonous ass. Nothing involving him should be cited as an exemplar of the behavior of reasonable people.
Icelanders are extremely ethnically homogeneous. You can go there fairly freely, but it would be about as easy to become a seal.
Regards,
Ric
Comment by jon on 5/20 @ 4:49 am #
Dicentra, they buy a lot of fuel for their jeeps (not Jeeps, trademark, but “jeeps” as in behemoth 4wd vehicles that are fun on frozen volcanic landscapes and occasionally fall into crevasses and awaken elves and shit.) And with the rising fuel costs, they might have to get more practical vehicles like Land Rovers or H3s.
Why are they happy? If I was surrounded by beautiful blondes and elves all day, it would probably make me happy. Might make the Bjork videos make sense, too. That last one? With the bison and the waterfall? Gorgeous. Was there a song with it? Who cares.
Comment by Rusty on 5/20 @ 5:01 am #
Iceland okays 2008 whale hunt. That’s why they’re happy. Stickin’ it to the ‘Save the Whales’ morons. Fuck you John Muir!
Comment by sashal on 5/20 @ 5:06 am #
check
Comment by datadave on 5/20 @ 5:38 am #
democratic socialism…yupp, it works.
(duck and cover) off to work, see ya.
Comment by Pablo on 5/20 @ 5:58 am #
Well, he does have this to his credit. Thanks, Bobby!
Comment by Rob Crawford on 5/20 @ 6:31 am #
No shit, I’ve shaken Lani Tupu’s hand.
Comment by JD on 5/20 @ 6:38 am #
datamoron – I understand there is a shortage of underemployed high construction workers in Iceland. You ought to check it out.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 5/20 @ 6:43 am #
Yeah, but they’re almost Scandis, ain’t they?
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 5/20 @ 6:46 am #
Remember, JD: datamoron “can’t afford a ticket”.
$433 from New York to Reykjavik on Iceland Air.
I figure datamoron should be able to scrape that up after a month or two of tax fraud, don’t you?
And as JD says, there’s a shortage of construction workers there. They’re importing them from Poland, even.
Comment by DarthRove on 5/20 @ 6:54 am #
C’mon, the Poles are just doing work that Icelanders (Icelandians? Icicles?) won’t do. CONSTRUCTIONISTS!!!!!
Comment by Ric Locke on 5/20 @ 6:54 am #
Lessee: small, homogeneous population, geographically isolated to the point of caricature. Yup, pretty good sample, eh? “Family” works, too. Somebody should introduce you to the concept of scaling.
Regards,
Ric
Comment by Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) on 5/20 @ 7:20 am #
- Scaling? Ric I would imagine that the door knob never got past chapter 1 in the Set theory text book. You know, to paraphrase; “Whats mine is yours and whats yours is mine, except I don’t have squat so you’ll be contributing heavily.”
- To a Socialist door knob, everything looks like another opportunity to score some free shit off someone.
Comment by Lost My Cookies on 5/20 @ 8:46 am #
You know, if the graphical intertubes had been accesible in 1988, no one outside of Iceland would have any idea where Iceland was. Seriously, I can’t have been the only one who was forced to pretend to like that fucking Sugarcubes album by Rolling Stone and 120 Minutes. I’ll give them one good song, where was Napster when we needed it?
Comment by Ouroboros on 5/20 @ 10:19 am #
With their modern ships and modern crews,
Sonar scopes and ‘Splodin harpoons.
With their mechanical boats made outta steel
Viking men bent on killin the whale.
There’s lots of whales in the deep blue sea
and they kill them for the industry..
Looking for ivory and perfume..
..for plastic toys and canned pet food.
Tell me what kind of men are these
that are scouring the deep blue sea
Worse than the Russians and the Japanese
Big blond Norsemen that kill with ease..
Hooray, up she rises!
Hooray, up she rises!
Hooooray, up she rises!
Earl-ie in the morning…
Comment by Cowboy on 5/20 @ 7:02 pm #
Why am I thinking of Judy Collins?
Comment by Cowboy on 5/20 @ 7:07 pm #
Oh, yeah, I remember now.
Comment by Cowboy on 5/20 @ 7:07 pm #
AAAGH!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-VyZBsBkj4
Comment by Rusty on 5/20 @ 7:18 pm #
That was five minutes too long, thanks cowboy.
Comment by datadave on 5/20 @ 9:03 pm #
’scaling’ is that some excuse or something? Iceland is small and we’re big? ok. Then why is nearly all of Europe (with a small amount of resources comparatively) doing better in the ‘happiness factor’? Since our conservative leadership has declared war upon the middle class…expect more sad comparisons.
Comment by Dan Collins on 5/20 @ 9:04 pm #
Iceland’s small. It doesn’t count.
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 5/20 @ 9:41 pm #
doing better in the ‘happiness factor’?
Well, Dave, if you defined ‘happiness’ as ’starving to death while singing patriotic songs about Kim Jong Il’, North Korea would be the happiest place on Earth.
If I thought people were that much happpier in some other country, I’d move there.
As noted before, you don’t even believe your own bullshit. Don’t expect the rest of us to believe it.
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