The Kingdom of Norway appears to be a happy, successful country. It is a nice country in a world that is not nice. We need nice countries, so I hope they wake up soon. Meanwhile, the US needs to remain fully awake about Norway. Norway is about the size of Montana and has a population of five million people, of which 12% are immigrants. They appear to be peace-loving and cooperative; they are with us in Afghanistan and they are a founding member of NATO as well as a large contributor to the United Nations. Their financial success comes from their wealth of natural resources. They have many social welfare programs including free universal health care and subsidized education. Norway doesn't seem to anticipate much criminal conduct as the maximum criminal sentence is 21 years in prison. This can be fiddled with in 5-year increments if the person is a danger to society, but 14 years is generally the maximum anyone serves. After serving half of his or her sentence, the criminal can get...(Read Full Post)