International reactions to U.S. president Obama’s Nobel peace prize award have been mixed, to say the least, since last week’s announcement, as they’ve been at home. In fact, the Norwegian public is split down the middle in the matter, despite general support for Obama and his political agenda.
Of course, it comes as no surprise, as, after all, the laureate himself has very little to show for himself. In fact, he seems just as surprised as the rest of us.
Much as I share president Obama’s ideas, goals, hopes and aspirations, I must …

Most of us have harboured great expectations to U.S. president Barack H. Obama, but very few of us expected immediate — and such welcome — results. If he keeps up this pace, there’s really no limits to what he can achieve.
Only last night, for instance, president Obama signalled a new era for global economy, indicating that America can no longer “be the sole engine of global growth”, which is something the rest of us have known for quite som time (as, I suspect, has he):
[…] However, the days of super …

Amid daily news of an ever-crumbling US auto industry, there’s been much talk of the bailout the automaker CEOs tried to negotiate in Washington DC the other day, among so many bailouts that it’s beginning to get increasingly harder to believe in the Federal Reserve’s ability to carry the weight. President-elect Barack Obama acted pretty swiftly on the matter, too, on the first possible occasion – during his wife’s and his guided tour of The White House the other week.
If action isn’t taken, and taken fast, the entire industry is …

Have to get started. Work is piling up, but I feel utterly incapacitated by current events. One would’ve thought it had an energising effect, no? Not so.
Oh, and yes: Seeing state by state turning blue was a sight for sore eyes (that turned sorer and sorer by the hour, by the way). Even the white snow in our garden acquired a certain bluish shade today. Whities turning to the blue party, huh?
The sky is blue, too, and here’s Ella for you, singing Blue skies – and then some:

You had a dream, you said. Could this possibly be it? Well, it certainly took its time coming true, but here we are: 338 Obama electoral votes and a total of 53,516,786 votes – and counting (at 7:10 AM Norwegian time). This has to be it.
“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America — I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you — …

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 …

First of all, I think I owe you a warning, as this post indeed lives up to the blog name, insignificant, after all, as it is. A mere result of thoughts going through my head as I brewed my latest pot of joe. The thing is, see, I do not much care for the once oh so exotic varieties that used to be popular up until ten years ago or so (granted, some even found them tremendously vanguardish even after that). After the caffè latte, mocca, macchiato and cortado wave …

With only three more days to go, the US presidential campaign has turned out to be a closer race than expected only weeks ago. Today, on the other hand, predicting the outcome is something very close to impossible.
So how did that come about? As I recall, news that Neo-Nazis Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman’s plot to “take out” Barack Obama and some 100 black people in a Tennessee killing spree about a week ago, turned out to be something of a turning point. Certainly, there’s been very little change in …

Two years ago or so, as words between Iranian and US presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and George W. Bush junior grew harsher, many of us feared a US invasion of Iran in the wake of the Iraqi war. It seemed a likely outcome at the time, with Bush accusing Iran of harbouring Iraqi insurgent leader Muqtada al-Sadr – and of weapon supplies to the Iraqi insurgents. Luckily our worst fears didn’t come to pass in 2006, not last year and – up until now, not this year, but we were pretty …

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 …

As we all know, American presidential and vice presidential spouses usually tend to take the back seat, if, for a moment, we allow ourselves to ignore former first lady Hillary R. Clinton. Sarah Palin’s run for vice presidency may well change that, assuming the McCain/Palin campaign succeeds, that is. In a culture not used to see men acting in the background, Todd Palin’s future role may pose a series of challenges, for which he’s already positioning himself. According to The Washington Post today:
Meghan Stapleton, a McCain spokeswoman who used to …

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 …