A questionnaire was passed out to Europeans featuring 150 questions on the quality of life, media monitoring habits, political attitudes, religion, healthcare, family and work – Finland took home the silver…

Finns were assessed only a hair’s breath chirpier than the Danes. The Swiss followed close on the heels of the Finns. The Norwegians came in fourth and the Swedes managed fifth position.

Another survey were much or all of the determining factors were self-critical. A few months ago I commented about a Finnish survey on drinking habits, the survey determined that drinking has actually gone down after the recent alcohol tax-breaks. The government organization, STAKES, and some of this blog’s readers immediately discredited the survey because it was self-critical. So should we discredit this survey about happiness and the very recent survey on competitiveness, just because they’re self-critical?

The semi-autonomous Ã…land Islands in Finland now have their own internet country code, “.ax” – It will begin in March of next year. Hopefully they’ll be selling these domains quite liberally like some of the other lesser-known island countries. .ax is bound to be a popular domain suffix.

And for those who don’t know, the Swedish ‘Ã…’ is pronounced like a mix between the Hebrew throat sound, and the Central African “click-click” sound. It’s almost as difficult to pronounce as the Finnish ‘Ö’.

People who eat Baltic fish have slightly higher levels of toxins

Reduce tax breaks given to people with housing loans in order to slow down the housing market

Decided to keep secret what had happened to Finnish Communists who moved into the Soviet Union and were persecuted by Stalin

More than 20 European countries were surveyed in 2004 and 2005

Entire Nordic region placed in top ten countries

President Saakashvili accuses Russia of territorial annexation

Opposition MP wants investigation of Mönkäre and Tuomioja

Finnish President Tarja Halonen did what she does best – nothing. When asked direct questions about the genocide in Armenia, she avoided them…

Armenian journalists asked the Finnish President if she would publicly recognise the events as an act of genocide. A number of countries, including France, have already done so. Turkey has refused to admit that genocide had taken place, and this refusal is one factor which has helped inflame relations between Armenia and Turkey; their border is closed off, and there are no diplomatic ties between the two countries.

President Halonen avoided a direct response to the questions, saying instead “We are building a common future with Armenia”.

No wonder this woman has such a high approval rating, she never says anything that people can disapprove of! She never takes a stand on anything!!

One of the biggest differences I’ve found between the American left and the Finnish left is the issue of corporate welfare. Before the War in Iraq, corporate welfare was the progressive left’s biggest concern – but it’s not a concern of the Finnish left, they fully embrace it. I’m with the American left on this one.

This whole Fortum indicident is just one of a million reasons why the government should keep their dirty fingers out of corporations. An elite few are getting rich all thanks to the Finnish taxpayer. The state buys into companies so things like this don’t happen, yet it’s happening. When it comes to business, Finnish politicians (like all politicians) are inept, unqualified, and corrupt. You’re naive if you think this all was just some “mistake” by some lowly civil servant. When a big U.S. corporation gets rich off stock options, they’re all evil and greedy. When a big Finnish corporation will get rich off stock options, it’s just some politicians’ blooper and now we need to “learn a lesson from the situation” as one Social Democrat said. I don’t buy it.

But this whole thing really seems to be about jealousy. Finns are jealous that others are getting rich, especially since the Finnish state is holding hands with them as they rake in the millions. The Social Democrat Party, who normally would be against this growth in wealth for individuals, appear to be the ones who gave the “green light” for this whole thing to happen – proving once again the kind of hypocrisy and elitism found in the Social Democrat Party. However, without these big incentives for shareholders, would people ever invest in them? Start up a company and make it public on the stockmarket and say, “Invest in our company, but if we ever become successful, you’re not getting any money!!” …you won’t find too many investors.

Mönkäre refuses to become a scapegoat and says that she had always followed government policy in decision-making

Ranked the world’s most competitive economy for the third time running by the World Economic Forum

Most municipalities do not have a comprehensive plan to prevent violence

Fortum chief executive Mikael Lilius alone has been awarded options worth 12 million euros