Finland

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The Land of Finns (Finnish: Suomi) is a country with an Uralic language that borders Sweden, Norway, and Russia. It is known as the place where the inhabitants sing, dance, and find romance in the true Scandinavian way. It is populated almost entirely by ducks, who share their country with an estimated 7000-7500 goats.[1]

Contents

[edit] Geography

The Gulf of Finland lies to the south, separating Finland from Estonia which is populated with "Baltic Finns".[2]

Finland has lots of ice, snow trees (yes, snow trees), and dirt. They also have 188,000 lakes and, in summer, 3.23x1083987 little flying bitey things, which they export to Sweden and Estonia. Also, spirits (the drinking kind) cost a fortune, which isn't that big a deal since native Finns generally get drunk very easily.

The capital of Finland is Helsinki and the second largest city is Nokia.[3] Nokia (the company, not the city) is responsible for one quarter of all Finnish exports[4] and generated 3.5% of the Finnish GDP.[5]

[edit] Politics

Bleh... I don't feel so good... Just look at those disgusting umlauts. Oh... Blaaurghlrphtpthbplech...

The Finnish crown was unified with Sweden until 1809, when Russia conquered it. After failed rebellions, the Finns won their independence in 1918, taking advantage of the Russian Revolution. Russia tried to take it again during the 1939-40 Winter War, but only succeeded in getting about a tenth of it because they didn't realize how cold it was there or that the Finns would be able to put up a fight. Particularly this guy.

[edit] People

Finns are considered the shyest people on earth.[6] Aww. :)

Despite this shyness most Finns are satisfied with their lives and the United Nations’ World Happiness Report ranked Finland the second happiest nation after Denmark. They leave a large ecological footprint. [7] [8]

60 Minutes once aired this story about their one (and it would seem their only) social event: the tango.[9]

The language of Finland is Finnish (though there is a small Swedish-speaking population, of which Linus Torvalds, who started the Linux project, was part of before moving to Oregon), which looks somewhat like the alphabet throwing up. This is largely because instead of using diacritics to show a phonemic long vowel or consonant, they decided to duplicate the entire letter. The Latin alphabet, spread by Christianity is in use, so we are allowed to blame the Church for any illnesses caused by looking at the orthography, although they probably won't listen.

[edit] Education

Finland is often praised for its high quality education system, and Finnish students are often ranked as the best in the world (in studies such as the PISA[10]) Finnish schools do not teach Intelligent Design nor do they teach the controversy. Biology books, for one, establish evolution as one of the 8 primary conditions for life and the Big Bang is referenced constantly as the origin of the universe. Religion is taught mostly for the students to understand and tolerate world religions, and Christianity is mostly dealt from a philosophical perspective.

[edit] Cranks and Wingnuttery

Popular wingnuttery in Finland revolves mostly around racism, Russo- or Islamophobia, and revanchism over territories lost in the Second World War. Euroskepticism is also very popular in modern Finland and is one of the main attractions for the main nationalist party Perussuomalaiset ("the True Finns").

In a bit of historical revisionism, Finland often downplays its allegiance to Nazi Germany during World War II, and during the Cold War the common theory was that Finland was involved with Nazi German assault on the Soviet Union through sheer bad luck and coincidence. Nowadays it is common to completely ignore the presence of over 200,000 Nazi German soldiers in Northern Finland (including Waffen-SS) and emphasis on Finland's lack of involvement in the Holocaust[11] and lack of an official treaty of alliance. Many Finnish war memorials also list Finland's involvement in WW2 as 1939-1944, thus ignoring the short war between Finland and Germany in 1944-1945.

Finland is home to Pentti Linkola, the hardest of the hard greens, infamous for his praise of events such as 9/11 and pretty much anything with human casualties.

[edit] Ulkopuoliset linkit

[edit] Alaviitteet

  1. http://www.vuohet.net/vuohi.html (Finnish)
  2. See the Wikipedia article on Baltic Finns.
  3. Yes, it is where the phones come from.
  4. In 2003 http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/maney/2004-06-30-maney_x.htm
  5. In 2004
  6. Some say that making eye contact with a Finn is akin to a physical assault.
  7. Finland ranked as world’s second happiest country
  8. Finland, happy Planet Index
  9. See the Wikipedia article on Finnish tango.
  10. See the Wikipedia article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PISA_(student_assessment).
  11. Finland deported 8 illegal immigrants—all Jews—to Germany where they were exterminated. Besides this, Finnish Jews were equal to everyone else and actively serving in the Finnish military.
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