In a blog post about a year ago, reporting on WW2 revisionist (and Holocaust denier) David Irving’s Oslo visit in May 2009, I quickly found myself at the very centre of the global extreme right movement’s attention, or what to me seemed the centre. Assuming that I remain on the revisionist watch-list, I would very much like to use this opportunity to rectify the impression of an enemy of free speech, lest I end up sucking on a .45 barrel, as suggested by one of them.
As a translator—among other things—I …

We all wonder, from time to time, why the Germans allowed themselves to be seduced by Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist party, and how they persuaded the better of an entire nation to consider the Jews criminal, greedy, self-absorbed and prepared to poison German culture with Judaism.
These questions have been asked over and over again, leaving us completely dumbfounded, even though we’re full aware of the effects of mass psychosis and an efficient propaganda machinery, and yet, we’re just as receptive of it as the pre-WW2 Germans.
Third Reich Führer …

We’ve seen an impressive involvement in freedom of speech issues in Norway over the last couple of years, which interestingly seems less related to the freedom of speech itself  than to our right to discredit and insult members of the country’s largest minority and its religion. It is that specific right we wish to defend.
We’re talking muslim immigrants, an ethnically very diversified group, to be more precise. Any attempt at criticising overzealous islam or muslim skepticism is met with accusations of either high treason or censorship, while censorship abroad appears …

I’ll be the first to acknowledge a bias in my recent comments on Israel’s military operations in the Gaza strip, undoubtedly fuelled by disgust over the cruelties taking place. But we’d be ill advised to draw civilian Israelis or Jews into this. Let’s put the blame where it belongs: On Israeli authorities.
As a matter of fact, I’m equally disgusted by Norwegian protesters going after a supporter of Israel, shouting “Take him!” and “Bloody Jew!”, as was the case with the 73 year-old Mr. Sverre Martin Haug, who, incidentally, probably isn’t …

In this day and age, with greenhouse gases engulfing the planet amid a financial crisis likely to bury the auto industry (which in all honesty ought to be long-since buried anyway) we need to explore the alternatives, of which one has been available for decades. The first streamlined high-speed trains, with a 130 km/h average speed and a more than 160 km/h top speed were introduced in Europe and the United States as early as 1933, as a matter of fact, and yet, some countries, such as Norway, are still …

As I mentioned in my last post, there’s a fierce debate going on in Norwegian blog land, with harsh words and a wide range of accusations – as usual, whenever feminists are involved. But it’s quite the proverbial storm in a cup, really, as the discussions are restricted to a very limited core of bloggers, whose impact on the public debate is less than insignificant, I’m afraid. Which is all good and proper, as the debate’s level of reasoning serves neither parties.
But I can’t for the life of me figure …

Dear Senator McCain,
I’m sure you’re a fine man, in every sense. Maybe not president material, but in every way a trustworthy, honest, through and through decent man, in whom I in fact recently regained some faith (in Norwegian) when you tried to stagger your running-mate’s crazed stampede against Obama only weeks ago. And that’s not all:
I’m also quite grateful that you seem to have taken a sustainable stand in environmental matters, unlike the president currently in office and, again, your running-mate Governor Palin. There’s not a doubt in my soul …

The Norwegian population said no to EU membership, not once, but twice; in the 1972 and the 1994 referendums. Why? Only years before the 1972 referendum it became clear that Norway’s economy was in for a major boost, facilitating unprescedented wealth for one of Europe’s up until then poorest nations. A wealth which definitely had taken effect by 1994, at which point we turned down membership once more.
Even though we were stinking rich at the time, the debate revolved around this single issue: What’s in it for us? Of course …

As we all know, US president George W. Bush’s plead for a USD 700 billion bi-partisan bailout plan failed yesterday. Quite a few Republicans attribute the failure to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who, apparently, did not stick to the original transcript for the speech she gave prior to the congressional vote. I think I’d better quote Politico on this one:
[…] But anyone who looked at the transcript of Pelosi’s speech released by her office might have been puzzled by the complaints.
The transcript seemed relatively tame - with only relatively mild shots …

When the very symbols of America and everything American – Chrysler, Ford and GM – need a USD 25 billion dollar federal rescue plan in order to survive… That’s when you know The Great Depression 2™ simply has to be just around the corner. I think we’d be well advised not to look at recent developments in the American economy as an American problem, as Wall Street (and the American economy as such) has a huge impact on just about any economy in the world. There’s a contradiction in there, …

I wrote an article on the return of the cold war over at iNorden some time ago, even though the matter has had me worried for quite some time, really, and honestly, recent developments give plenty of cause for concern. In today’s New York Times there’s a brief account on Russia’s deployment of warships in South American waters, we’re beginning to get an impression of what’s actually taking place:
The convoy – including the nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser Peter the Great and the anti-submarine ship Admiral Chabanenko – left the fleet’s …

There’s no denying it: We tend to favour Barack Obama in these parts, or the Democrats, for that matter. Unfortunately we’re not allowed to cast our votes in the upcoming US election, even though some would argue that we really should be granted admittance, seeing as American politics affect us all.
However, there’s this thing that I just can’t seem to get my head around: Why is it that Europeans and Americans differ in so many political aspects? One would’ve thought we’d be a lot more alike, given the common cultural …