What's wrong with you, America? While you leer at "hoochie mamas" on VH1 and use "sext messages" on your "crackberries," a very real international crisis is being ignored across the ocean: Norway is running out of butter.

Norway, which so kindly gave to the United States our entire upper midwest, is now in need of help. Will we stand idly by, or do the right thing?

Norwegians have eaten up the country's entire stockpile of butter, partly as the result of a "low-carb" diet sweeping the Nordic nation which emphasizes a higher intake of fats. "Sales all of a sudden just soared, 20 per cent in October then 30 per cent in November," said Lars Galtung, the head of communications at TINE, the country's biggest farmer-owned cooperative.

A wet summer which reduced the quality of animal feed and cut milk output by 25 million litres had already limited supplies and the shortage has led some pundits to suggest the world's eighth-largest oil exporter offer some of its plentiful fuel supply in exchange for butter.

[...]

Butter is now selling on Norway's top auction website, with a 250-gram piece starting at around $13, roughly four times its normal price.

Meanwhile Denmark sits by, doing what it always does, which is laugh at Norway and mockingly offer 1,000 packets of butter. How many people must go without butter for the winter? How many photos of greaseless, thin Norwegians must we see for us to do the right thing? Which is, invade Denmark, install a puppet democracy, and then leave ten years later.

[Vancouver Sun via The Daily Beast, image, of typical American family, via AP]