Vikings - A few weeks

Vikings - A few weeks ago, when I mentioned that Denmark was supporting the invasion of Iraq, a friend of mine wrote be "Whoah. What next, Vanuatu?"

This story from blogger Crimen Falsi, about Danes in action, should bely that. Scroll down to February 25 (his archives are broken) for the whole story.

But here's my favorite part:

That's when it struck me -- the Danes aren't mushy naked volleyballers like some of their Nordic neighbors -- they are the actually descendants of the Vikings, who as we know conquered a country whose name rhymes with "Pants", pretty much wiped out the Irish coastal cities, wreaked havoc in Britain, invaded (and traded in) Russia, and even knocked off Malta just for kicks. Yeah, that whole creeping socialist Danish government thing had me fooled, but then I remembered that the Vikings used to live communally for the most part, so maybe socialism is just part of their national culture, and not the same plague for them as it is for us.

Some of our European neighbors aren't the cheese-eating surrender monkeys that we keep hearing about in the media. It's worth noting that Danish and Norwegian special forces both fought alongside our guys in Afghanistan.

Posted by Mitch at March 1, 2003 02:09 PM