from the hip

A young Norwegian couple in their 20’s has proved that it possible to drive at a speed of 123 kilometers an hour on a highway and have sex. However, they were unfortunate and were stopped by the police between the cities of Drammen and Asker on their way to Drammen. The police observed that the car was not driving straight, turned on the video, followed them for a little while, saw that there were two people in the driver seat, and stopped them.

As it turned out, the young lady was sitting in the man’s lap, and they were in the middle of an intercourse. The man lost his driver’s license, while the young lady kept hers and was allowed to drive the car home after the little incident!

For the third time there are riots and street fighting in Oslo over the conflict in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians. A demonstration against Israel at the Israeli embassy in Oslo turned into a regular street fight when demonstrators threw bottles and stones, and fired fireworks at the police.

As they have one two previous occasions, the police responded with tear gas and spread the crowds. Then the violent demonstration turned into more or less undisciplined street fighting, breaking windows, beating up bystanders, and wrecking havoc on the usually quiet and peaceful city of Oslo.

Norwegian public opinion has increasingly turned in a pro-Palestinian direction over the last few years. Some of the leading newspapers, most notably the once liberal Dagbladet, are relative extremist in its pro-Palestinian view-points. Also, the current left-wing government of the Social democrat party and the Socialist party is pro-Palestinian in its orientation.

embedded by Embedded Video

embedded by Embedded Video

The Danish newspaper Politiken writes that Denmark now is the most expensive country in the EU as far as consumer prices for goods and services is concerned! They write:

Statistics Denmark 2007 figures show Denmark to have the highest consumer prices for goods and services in the 27 European Union countries – 38 percent above the EU average.

Number two on the list is Ireland with 25 percent above the average. The lowest consumer prices among the old EU countries are to be found in Greece and Portugal where prices are 11-15 percent below the average.

The lowest prices are to be found in the new EU countries, with Bulgaria coming in at 53 percent below the EU average.

Denmark is also the most expensive country in the EU for foodstuffs and non-alcoholic beverages where Danish price levels are 43 percent above the EU average.

I am sure those numbers are correct. The only country in Europe more expensive than Denmark is Norway, which is not a member of the EU and thus not included in these statistics.

Iceland, which is currently in an economic meltdown, will be getting  help from its Nordic neighbors. The Danish newspaper Politiken writes that:

Iceland’s Prime Minister has been in contact with his Nordic counterparts ‘for some time now’, according to Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and Nordic help may be on the way to the beleaguered Icelanders.
The prime minister’s comments came as the benchmark Icelandic index, which has been closed for business for some days, reopened and plummeted a full 76 percent. Trade in Iceland’s three largest banks, which have been taken over by the state, remain suspended.

Elsewhere in the paper, Politiken reports that Iceland will be receiving a borrowing facility for 500 mill. Euro from the Danish national bank. The Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, on the other hand, reports that the loan is 400 mill Euro, and that the borrowers are Denmark and Norway, both with 200 mill.

See also:

• Times – Iceland secures €200m from Norway, Denmark
• New York Times – Iceland Turns to Neighbors to Prevent a Collapse

The Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard has created a piece entitled “Margaux Hemingway”. In Norwegian newspapers it is more often referred to as “the vagina arm”.

(more…)

Yet another wolf missing in Norway, writes the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten.

The wolves kill sheep, and many ranchers in Norway are extremely upset by the protection of the wolves. Conservationists fear that she has been killed by increasingly radical ranchers who want to see wolves wiped out. However, now police and conservationists are teaming up to hunt the illegal hunters.

The racnhers, or their associates, have also been reported to harass reseachers studying the wolves. When researcher Kenneth Larsen at Hedmark University College in Elverum returned to his car after a week studying the wolves, on a lonely forest road near Hafsjøen, he found three of his four tires slashed.

In a recent study reported by Aftenposten last week, wolf researchers claimed that half of the deaths of Scandinavian wolves during the past year are blamed on illegal hunting.

The minister of justice in Norway has proposed criminalizing the purchase of sexual services. The law proposes imposing fines and up to six months in jail for anyone convicted of paying a prostitute for sex. The law is in line with a “Sex Purchase Law” passed by neighboring Sweden in 1999, which has been the subject of intense interest in Europe and elsewhere.

Justice Minister Knut Storberget said in presenting the proposed law: “People are not a commodity and criminalizing the purchase of sex would make it less attractive for human traffickers to look to Norway.”

I am not sure I like the law. I don’t really know how smart it is to criminalize people for buying sex. But at least that part of the law I respect. The part I have strong objections to, is the part that says that the law should apply to Norwegians visiting other countries as well. This is strange as a legal principle.

I mean, if a Norwegian drive a car at 160 km/hour on a German highway, this is legal in Germany but illegal in Norway. But people do not get punished for it when they return home to Norway. Same for smoking cannabis in Amsterdam. And so on. But now the government proposes that when a Norwegian does something in a foreign country that is legal in that country, he is to be punished when he returns home?

And, in addition to the very strange legal principle involved, there is also the almost impossible situation with respect to implementation. Are Dutch policemen supposed to look out for Norwegians buying sex, when that purchase is legal in the Netherlands? And the same in other countries, of course.

So, seems to me, the only people who will be punished for this are the ones admitting to have done it – some honest guys – and people who are informed about by friends that can’t be trusted or enemies, and then some few others more or less randomly.

To me it seems strange and not very smart to put in place a law that punishes the honest and rewards informers. Is that how the socialist government in Norway wants Norway to become?

One of Norway’s largest newspapers, Dagbladet, today implicitly accuses Norway’s Prime Minister, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg, of having dished out false promises for 20 years about men’s rights to a paid leave following child births. This is an issue of great concern to many in Norway working for greater equality between men and women.

Every third father, approximately, does currently not have this right in Norway. Men only get this if the mother of the child has worked during six of the ten last months preceding the birth of a child.

The newspaper accuses Stoltenberg very smartly, without actually stating it explicitly, by publishing two news articles side by side on the internet version of the newspaper. One of the articles contains an interview with Mr. Stoltenberg dating from March 1987, 20 years ago. There, as a young and rising star in the Norwegian Labor Party, he strongly argues in favor of men’s right to a paid leave following child births is a very important issue.

The second article, posted right next to the first, states that time is running out for Stoltenberg. While not commenting itself, Dagbladet lets a veteran-member of the Labor Party in Norway, Britt Schultz, say that this reform is overdue, and that there has been a lot of symbol-politics about this, but that symbolic politics do not produce results. Even without comments from the paper itself, this seem to be a pretty strong statement by the paper.

So. There it is. 20 years of talk and no action. That’s a lot of talk.

Nicely done by Dagbladet. Actually.

We all know that Norway is an expensive place to visit. However, it may well be that some of the prices are even higher than you may think. I would even so far as to say pretty wild.

A Norwegian blogger yesterday published the fines local police authorities in Norway issues for minor offenses like urinating in public (or in the snow, as the case may be), drinking in public, or starting a fight.

The fine for peeing in the snow in the small city of Trysil, according to the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, cited by the blogger, is NOK 10.000. That’s approximately USD 2.000 or GBP 900!

Here is the headline from Dagbladet:

10 000 i bot for å tisse ute

Politiet i Trysil har egne påskepriser for dobesøk ute i naturen.

It says: “10.000 for peeing outdoors. The police in Trysil have their own prices for using nature as a toilet”.

Here is the list of prices compiled by the blogger:

• Trysil: Peeing in the snow – USD 2.000-3.000
• Trysil: Drinking in a public place – same
• Voss: Public fighting – USD 1.000
• Voss: Peeing – USD 400
• Beitostolen/Kvitfjell: Peeing USD 600-1.000

The official term, of course, is not peeing, but urinating in a public place. I’m just abbreviating a little.

Many people ask themselves, quite understandable, what to do when they are out skiing and need to pee? One commentator on the Norwegian blog suggested breaking into a cabin and peeing there. The fine for breaking and entry when in distress is lower than that for peeing, was his argument.

While imposing fines on foreigners and people from the cities seems to be a favorite activity for the Norwegian police, and no doubt brings money into the coffers of the Government and the police departments, crime is rising rapidly in Norway. Many Norwegians, therefore, feel that the focus of the police may be slightly misdirected.