We're Number One! We're Number One! Newsweek magazine, certainly credible, in their August 23 & 30, 2010 issue profiled countries to find out which one was the best country.

My first thought before reading the issue was that New Zealand might win. Then I wondered if Canada might edge them out and finally I mused about Tristan de Cunha, a place on my bucket list of places to see before...well, while I still can.

Newsweek rhetorically asks, "If you were born today, which country would provide you the very best opportunity to live a healthy, safe, reasonably prosperous, and upwardly mobile life?" To my delight and surprise, my own ancestral home won the big number one position. Finland. Go figure.

Again, according to Newsweek, "the best countries tend to be small, rich, safe, and cold." That's Finland all right. Especially the cold part.

Newsweek attempted to justify why, not just Finland, but Nordic countries in general, did so well in the Newsweek profile. They write, "The link between freezing and a high ranking becomes more explicable when the following dots are connected: a heated classroom is better than being outside chopping trees, hence education is important; moving briskly is good preventive medicine, thus health is robust; quality of life improves immensely when one must get as close to one's beloved as possible to fend off the chill; the political environment is likewise better when governance is kept simple and equitable because it's too cold to fight in the streets; and finally, economic dynamism is bound to be high among peoples who have learned to combat frostbite with a maximum of movement and the least expense of calories.

"A large portion of Finland's well-being is also the result of its historical reputation for fierceness and diplomacy; it has had to fight and appease both the Russians and the Germans."

The world's best countries, Newsweek continues, "avoid war, they live in the dark, and they maintain a steady state of...productive activity."

And they end up being Number One, the Best of the Best.

We're Number One! And that's what I think about it.