
Norwegians campaign to give Finland a mountain - teh_klev
http://www.thelocal.no/20151216/give-finland-a-new-highest-peak-norway-campaign
======
Gravityloss
As a Finn I really appreciate this gesture. I've even been to that mountain.
Norwegians are cool and straightforward. If all countries were more like
Norway, there wouldn't need to be wars or closed borders.

~~~
jpkeisala
What a nice gesture from our great neighbor to give few extra meters to our
highest peak.

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interfixus
From the guys who gave us OOP, css, and Qt to the guys who gave us the guy who
gave us Linux. A mountain top. What's not to like?

~~~
dirtyaura
Linux, irc and MySQL.

~~~
Numberwang
Wasnt MySQL Swedish?

~~~
kiiski
There were two founders, one Finnish and the other Swedish.

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jkot
Czech Republic is giving Poland 900 acres as a gift:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/czechrepubl...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/czechrepublic/11452364/Czech-
Republic-to-hand-over-900-acres-of-territory-to-Poland-in-border-dispute.html)

~~~
scribu
It doesn't actually sound like a gift, but more like a payment to resolve a
territorial dispute.

~~~
jkot
There is a treaty from 1989, that all land disputes are closed and borders are
final. They claim there is a glitch after that, so it is is a gift.

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jerguismi
What would we do with that crappy mountain. Give use the oil, dammit.

~~~
pi-rat
We actually tried to give away major oil rights to the Swedes 35 years ago, in
exchange for 40% of Volvo, but the Swedes refused.

So we ended up pumping up the oil ourselves and invested it in a giant oil
fund. This oil fund is now the second biggest owner of Volvo.

Thank you Sweden for not accepting the offer :)

~~~
Johnny_Brahms
You know that the sovereignty of Norway was just a hundred year trial until
2005. We could have just gone "Nope, they still eat fiskekaker. it has
obviously not worked out."

Now, it would have been a diplomatic crisis, but we _could_ have done it.

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pm24601
Here is the google location:
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Halti,+99400+Enonteki%C3%B...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Halti,+99400+Enonteki%C3%B6,+Finland/@69.3096807,21.2601769,15.76z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x45cff81455374207:0x75d43fa3984b730!5m1!1e4!6m1!1e1)

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eklavya
From a very distant part of the world, it seems magical to hear about such
people and places. I can only wish for it :)

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thomasahle
Can we have one too?

Mange tak.

\- Denmark

~~~
unixhero
As you know. You had it all

\- Norway _amicable nipletwist_

~~~
troels
touché

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jpatokal
Oddly enough, Halti _is_ already Finland's highest mountain: the current
highest point in Finland is just a little lower (1,324 m) than the actual peak
that the Norwegians propose to hand over (1,365m).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halti](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halti)

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tosseraccount
"Open borders" but a firm embrace of a welfare state?

That's an invitation to migrate for welfare.

"It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state,"
-Friedman.

(dang, thanks for the down votes. Parent gets a dig in for "open borders" and
pointing out that concept has a serious cost is "unmutual" thought here at HN?
How about some serious feedback instead? )

~~~
DeusExMachina
But if all countries were more like Norway, there probably would not me
welfare immigration, since every country would have it.

~~~
hack_edu
I too wish I was sitting on near-infinite reserves of natural resources. The
Norwegian economy and social state can sustain itself for generations on oil
income alone. Its population literally doesn't need to work and can still
support the current quality of life.

~~~
shaneqful
The difference between Norway and most countries with Oil is how Norway
manages the proceeds. It has a very long term plan and doesn't allow too much
of the money to reside in Norway thereby artificially inflating the economy.

~~~
scott_karana
Yes, agreed. The recent drop in oil prices has caused Canada's economy to
plummet, due to mismanagement, for example.

[http://credbc.ca/norways-oil-gas-policy/](http://credbc.ca/norways-oil-gas-
policy/)

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littletimmy
Could the Scandinavian countries be any more perfect? In a world full of
strife, and countries fighting over pieces of land, Norway/Sweden sound like a
fairytale.

~~~
patrickaljord
The Swedish government has a monopoly on the sell of alcohol, price is two to
three times more expensive than the rest of Europe and you are forced to buy
from State owned supermarkets which closes around 3pm on Saturdays and all day
on Sunday. If this kind of socialism is a fairy tale for you, you can read
more about it here:

[http://hejsweden.com/en/the-swedes-and-alcohol-about-
drinkin...](http://hejsweden.com/en/the-swedes-and-alcohol-about-drinking-in-
sweden/)

~~~
alkonaut
And while it's ridiculous that you can't buy cold beer stronger than 3.5% by
volume, and can't do it on a Sunday, I still wouldn't switch to any of the
system in any country I have lived in (E.g. Australia, UK). I wouldn't mind
the prices of beer in a bar to be more reasonable but what can you do.

What's expensive in .se is the alcohol, not the alcholic products. That makes
the price of _some_ cheap products very high, most notably gin/vodka etc,
which carry a price that may be 3x higher than elsewhere (Worth noting of
course is that even at these prices they aren't nearly paying their own
damages). That is only half the story though, products like decent wine and
single malt whisky is actually very well priced, and often cheaper than in
their respecive countries of origin. In the uk a crap bottle of wine is £3, in
sweden twice that. A good bootle of wine in the uk is £20 and can be half that
in Sweden. Prices are _very_ compressed, which makes it an excellent place to
be drinking decent stuff.

I know you were likely sort of tounge-in-cheek about the alcohol issue, but
really there are lots of aspects that are way worse. Just take the fact that
the day (if you can even call it that) in Sweden today was 5 hours long...
That will drive you nuts no matter what the cost of booze is :D

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mahouse
>This is some kind of trick. I'll bet the mountain has 50,000 'Syrian
refugees' living on it or something.

Cracking up.

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tomaac
While it sounds like a nice gesture, it is quite dangerous actually. Maybe
this generation of norwegians don't mind to give away part of their country
but next generation will do. They might demand to give it back for some reason
and here you go - endless disputes and friendship turns in hatred.

~~~
throwaway999888
I think the area is small enough to be measured in square meters...

~~~
sokoloff
From the article: 0.015 km^2.

