pickled beets, pickled herring. yum yum. Just the thot of the possible menu makes me homesick for Minnesota.

I guess those Nordic countries with their evil Socialist tendencies are our friends now?

Or something?

Make lots of nice, but empty and meaningless, talk about whichever VIPs are in town for a visit - then back to "business as usual" as soon as their planes have cleared the tarmac.

Hillary scorned the idea that we should be more like Denmark. Of course, it doesn't go well w/ her governing philosophy.

Obama got the Nobel for NOT being Dumbya. (I still want to know who nominated him since the deadline for submitting candidates was only ten days after he took the oath of office in '09.) On the day he received the Nobel, Obama flew into Oslo, picked up the award, gave a short speech, and flew out without being gracious enough to stay for the dinner and festivities afterward (some of it is online, including a performance by the '09 Eurovision winner who was a Norwegian who had the highest score ever for any Eurovision contest winner; his high score has not been exceeded yet).

If Obama had known how rude his actions were (since he was still new at his office), would he have been more polite? Remember, he began drone bombing less than a week after his inauguration, and continued it on and off all that time before and after he went to Oslo for the Nobel ceremony. By then, no one felt he deserved the award. A decade down the line, it's too late now for Obama to make up for his prior rudeness.

Understand: the Scandinavians are excessively polite when it comes to rules of etiquette, just plain common-sense good manners. I was raised in a Scandinavian-American community and have ancestors from three of those countries, and while a great many things are typically American and informal, when it comes to good manners, one must mind one's p's and q's and be polite at all costs. One's reputation rises or falls on whether or not one has good manners (that's still true today). Manners were important in the Viking age (read the sagas, it's part of the lifestyle), and they're still important today. In government - in the Viking age and now - what was good for the most people was always considered of primary importance, and that's how they make their laws in the Alþingi; it's a great "equalizer" among people.

Why couldn't we be like the Nordic countries? Well, if we had a Medicare for ALL health insurance, health care system like they do (we would have to add things like dentistry, etc.), with prescription costs negotiated and controlled, and no corporations involved or taking over government functions, we could be like the Nordic countries (and several other countries in Europe). Obama, Congress, and SCOTUS had a chance to give us a government-run, not-for-profit single-payer health care system (like they have in the Nordic countries and several other countries in Europe), and our entire government failed We the People rather spectacularly! If we had free education pre-K through college, we could be like the Nordic countries (and several other countries in Europe). If we had mandatory paid vacations 4-6 weeks yearly, and up to +/- a year of paid leave when a new child is born, or paid sick leave when a disastrous health condition occurs or one has to stay home to care for a sick person, we could be like the Nordic countries (and several other countries in Europe). If we had government-run good child-care for working parents, we could be like the Nordic countries (and several other countries in Europe). The list goes on and on, and is predicated on keeping corporations OUT of government - and keeping their countries OUT of war (they do have a mandatory national military service for able-bodied people for two years, but militarism is not stressed).

Obama is one of the worst Democratic hypocrites we've ever had in office within my living memory. He really needs to STFU about things that could have been if he and his congressional and judicial branches had behaved properly and had passed laws that put We the People above corporations, the religious rightwingnuts, TBTF banks, Wall Street, the military-industrial-mercenary complex, or the upcoming TPP, and if he had led the way to giving us our rights back by repealing the Patriot Act (which expired but Section 215 was enacted two days later; gee, thanks Patrick Leahy; my respect for you dropped to zero), MCA '06, FISA '08, MCA '09 (passed under Obama's watch)..., among other things.

All Obama does when he says things like "Why can't all countries be like the Nordic countries?" is remind us of what might have been, and what he helped prevent.