« Awarded $2.2 Million for Bed Sores | Main | Open Thread »

(Why do I assume that you are not comparing their attempts at 'witchcraft' to your 'prayer' and finding them equally (in)effective?)

This is incredible, how can a country suddenly become so backwards? I thought witches were the province of African nation only (who, always 500 years behind the civilised world in all aspect are going throught their witch hunting phase)!

Was HILLARY CLINTON and MICHELE OBAMA with them?

As goes Iceland, so goes the world.
Nothing has come outta there since the Vikings.
Give em california and the New England states, heck, give em England too.
Maybe they need more mooozleeems to make things balanced.
I dunno, who cares?

The Vikings were from Norway, not Iceland.

The insane crackpot singer Bjork is from Iceland - thats basically all you need to know.

Actually, Icelanders are undiluted Viking stock. All Icelanders trace their lineage back to one boat of Vikings.

The thing to understand about Iceland is how tiny it is population-wise. Reykjavic feels like a large US suburb. Everyone is related, and most people seem to know each other. If you go to a gas station, you'll see gas attendants hanging with CEOs who are stopping by for a chat, because they are all in the same handful of large families. Aside from Reykjavic, there's a grand total of 150,000 other people living in the country, spread out over a continent. So when the whole country went belly up with the bank failure, it was like a large extended family suddenly losing its savings. There's a huge sense of collective loss and mourning, leading to some odd behavior. You have to feel for them though - they lost basically everything they had. Only a handful of financial game-players lost that money; 99 % of the people are either ruggedly individualistic seafood tradespeople, or highly-educated entrepreneurs running small IT firms and the like that would fit in well in any of our IT cities, like Raleigh NC, Austin TX etc. They are like Americans, except friendlier, kind of but not extremely left-leaning (and not as much as Europe-proper), and provincial. The only real difference between them and us is reserves and borrowing capability. We have more leverage to borrow abroad to finance our mess; but that might turn out to be temporary for us and at best a mixed blessing. As far as socialism, well, we did the same thing they did in the election, just without the formal party label.

In short Icelanders aren't really the people to pick on. They made the same mistakes we did, they just don't have the reserves to unwind their mess. It is one of the FEW places left in the world that feels sort of America-like.

The Vikings were a blend of all the Scandanavian countries. Modern Nordes have Viking, Saxon, Tuton, Norman, Anglo, and yes, even Roman blood.

- Jay B -

A possible answer to your question lies in the counter-intuitive fact that many advanced, highly-educated and "intelligent" civilizations often apply that highly-developed rationalism to discard truth and genuine religion and then turn their natural religious impulses to pagan worship, nature worship, and other forms of superstition. Religion without truth is superstition, and in a world of intellectually-based relativism, truth is rejected leaving open the door for all kinds of superstition. That's how things "progress" when God is eliminated from the natural order.

- Anonidiot -

Why do you and yours constantly to shoot all your arrows at an old fantastic tale and seek vengeance on a God who never existed at all? Move on with your God-less progress, and see if it turns out differently than those attempts in progressive Germany, USSR, and China.

"The thing to understand about Iceland is how tiny it is population-wise. Reykjavic feels like a large US suburb. Everyone is related.."

Isnt that bad for the gene pool?

Whats the world comming to when in these modern times they return to mumbo jumo magic

Mega, part of my point in this post was to draw the parallel between the responses of Iceland and the USA to their respective economic problems. Both countries because of the alleged failure of capitalism decided to elect hard-left socialists.

To me, this is idiocy. It's like hitting yourself on the thumb with a hammer, then deciding the hammer is the problem. So, you forswear hammers and decide from then on when you need to build something you'll pile up wood and hope for the best.

To me, this is idiocy. It's like hitting yourself on the thumb with a hammer, then deciding the hammer is the problem.

Sounds like all liberal policies. Think gun control.

GoY, your commentary and analogies always make me laugh.

A little off topic, but the post made me think of IcelandAir. They don't fly out of Philadelphia or Baltimore any more, and when they did every flight to Europe connected through Reykjavik, which has the most expensive "airport beer" I ever bought.

Still, it's a d#mn good airline, and I think they must hire the Top 10 in the Miss Iceland pageant as flight attendants every year.

And, did I mention the flight attendants? I really liked the flight attendants....

OK, because I've always been a Bewitched fan, I read a lot about "magic" an "witchcraft" and the people who practice it. The point is that I don't think that "...the short blonde witch, dressed of course in black, started to spank her effigy —“You’ve been a bad boy!” — pronounced a spell, then stuffed it in a garbage bag." is a REAL "spell".

One more thing:
Anonidiot, I've asked you this before; WHY do you put your posts in brackets?

And, did I mention the flight attendants? I really liked the flight attendants....
Posted by: TonyD95B at October 5, 2009 1:17 PM

I was just thinking that the young women up there must be legendary. I haven't met any Icelanders (unsurprising since there are so few to begin with), but the ladies from the rest of Scandinavia are renown throughout the Western world, and I doubted that Iceland would be any exception.

All I really know about the country itself is that it's a little piece of land out in the middle of the north Atlantic, that it's freakin cold, and that it has a lot of volcanoes.

To me, this is idiocy. It's like hitting yourself on the thumb with a hammer, then deciding the hammer is the problem. So, you forswear hammers and decide from then on when you need to build something you'll pile up wood and hope for the best.

'Scuse the pun, Gregory, but I think you "nailed it."

By the way, did you receive the suggestion I made over on your regular blog? Stop anonymous postings here. A moniker of some kind should be required in order to post.