No one needs to convince me about Scandinavia and its ability to provide for its citizenry. Having seen the following neighborhood and lived in Northeast DC for three years, I know the difference between a Scandinavian bad neighborhood and a really bad neighborhood.

And this image is of, hmmm, a house in Northeast DC?:

No, its right here in the Akalla ghetto. These are the “low income” houses I pass on the way to the train everyday.

When I mention I reside here in scenic Akalla temporarily, people tell me how dangerous it is and how terrible it looks. That picture above, that doesn’t look too terrible to me. To bad I don’t have a photo of the guy getting arrested with a semi-automatic weapon in front of my house or robbers undoing the bolts on the bars on the windows in my house to break in. Or the cops dusting the place for fingerprints. Did I mention this was 12 blocks from the Capitol Building. Of the U.S., the world’s biggest democracy and most prosperous country.

Akalla, a ghetto. Sure. Anyway, two more of this Swedish “bad neighborhood”:

I love the Swedes, I do, but sometimes it goes a little bit too far. Yes, this isn’t the most wonderful part of the city, I know that, but believe me, after you’ve gone to a 7-11 4 blocks from where you live and found out a guy crashed his car near the store after he’d been shot, Akalla really isn’t going to look bad.