One Million Morons

Basically you are a moron to start with in any case if you think that the number forty thousand in any way, shape or form conforms to the number one million. But that's not the main point. The main point is that religion rots the brain. Today's perfect example comes to you courtesy of JC Penney.

As you may have heard, this billion dollar company (if they still are above the billion mark at this point in the recession) have recently hired a new celebrity spokesperson, Ellen Degeneres. With my limited awareness of what JCP offers by way of ladieswear and Degeneres' public image I have to say they've made a pretty good choice. I think she'll be a great spokesperson for them. Not everyone agrees, though. A gaggle of women with too much free time, all of them no doubt good Christians, have taken it upon themselves to protest this affront against decency. They claim, and I quote:

By jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon, JC Penney is attempting to gain a new target market and in the process will lose customers with traditional values that have been faithful to them over all these years ... The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there.

Here's where religion rots your brain. Supposing that these people aren't just trolling, we have to accept that they actually believe this. How stupid can you get? It goes without saying that what they imagine cannot possibly be the case. IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING. This is a huge company that we're talking about here. Huge. A retail giant. It is completely and utterly one hundred percent safe to take it as given that before extending this offer to Degeneres, the relevant powers that be at JCP have done ridiculous amounts of market research, focus group testing, polling etc in order to find out who among those celebrities they could reasonably expect to hire would be the most useful and beneficial for their brand. So no, the majority of their customers will not be offended and will not choose to shop elsewhere. This has already been determined - before the position was offered to Degeneres.

It goes without saying. Can't people at least try to use their brains a little?

Sheesh, humans. But at least the One Million Moronic Moms have taken down their Facebook post ... after most of those who commented totally disagreed with them. There may still be some hope for humanity.

Political correctness gone amok

This thing right here - seriously, this showcases everything that's wrong with political correctness. OMG, someone made a pun that references color ... !! SHOOT HIM!!1

If I recall correctly, I seem to remember one of these Madcon guys calling some white fellow 'vanillaface' during a concert somewhere ... last year, was it? But of course, that was merely an amusing joke. Silly me, I forgot that only white people can be racist.

Now there's talk about not allowing Plumbo to participate in our national ESC contest, Melodi Grand Prix, as they are scheduled to do. I hope they are allowed to compete; anything else would be totally ridiculous, and if they are, I will vote for them.

Name and shame

There's clearly something wrong with the laws in this country when guys like the scumbag in this article is walking around as a free man. And working a new job, no less. (The article is in Norwegian, but I'm sure that all of you reading this, if you're not Norwegian, have people just as scummy in all of your own countries too.) It's so wrong that it's actually possible to deliberately scam people out of their money - inflict economic harm on others for your own personal gain - and risk no legal sanction for it as long as it's done the right way. Well, 'right'. And they call it 'business'. Shit. What kind of business is that that doesn't produce anything, not even money, just numbers? Fuck 'em.

Now that the harm is done, what IMO is also really wrong with our laws is that Aftenposten in this article is - I presume - not allowed to name the guy in their article. Since he hasn't been convicted of anything, it's probably slander if they do. Fuck that shit too. People like this should be named and shamed. All of Bergen should be plastered with posters of this guy. And I would really like to know where this guy works now so I can avoid that institution at all costs.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd like to know that. Fortunately, in our brave new world of information everywhere I'm sure someone will be able to suss the guy out and start a group, or whatever, against him on Facebook. I'd theoretically consider joining that group.

Kleine kids

Den siste tida har jeg innsett at jeg ikke er inne i slangen de unge bruker nå til dags. Det er jeg forsåvidt glad for. Jeg hadde egentlig trodd at jeg ikke helt hadde mistet kontakten med ungdommens språk, men jo, det har jeg nok, og det er slett ikke det verste som kan skje. Når jeg tok Aftenpostens språktest her om dagen fikk jeg opplyst at jeg har en språklig alder på ... hva var det nå, 74 år? Bare fordi jeg ikke er så tett i nøtta at jeg tror at det heter et hamster. >:-(

Men i alle fall. Jeg har skjønt at jeg ikke vet hvordan ungdommen snakker, og denne innsikten har jeg oppnådd gjennom massemedia. Til og med Dagbladet har altså fortsatt sin misjon. Som alle gamle avfeldige knarker som ikke forstår verden rundt seg lenger irriterer også jeg meg over hvordan disse unge jyplingene maltrakterer språket vårt. Det er spesielt to ord som irriterer meg i ekstrem grad og som jeg nå bare må beklage meg over.

Det ene er adjektivet kleint, som tydeligvis er det helt store dilleordet for tiden, av en eller annen ubegripelig grunn. Det må være svært mye brukt - alle unge kvasikjendiser, fra Trekanttullinger til jockeyer som har sett døden i hvitøyet, og en lang rekke helt ukjente brødhuer, blir sitert på dette ordet. Da kan jeg knapt forestille meg hvor ofte de bruker det i dagligtalen, hvis de er villige til å la seg forevige i landets største aviser med så idiotiske utsagn. Hvor kommer dette fra? Dansk? Tysk? Det virker ikke særlig kebabnorsk. Men det er i hvert fall utrolig irriterende.

Dog ikke på langt nær så irriterende som det faktum at nordmenn nå tydeligvis har begynt å bruke ordet kids når de mener barn eller unger. Dette begynte vel som noe hipsterironisk, at de som var hakket eldre skulle virke underholdende nedlatende mot generasjonene under seg ved å kalle dem for kidsa. Men nå har det altså gått over i mainstream, dessverre, og det ser ut til å brukes som om det var et virkelig ord, et normalt ord. Og ikke bare av ungdommen heller - folk som hevder seg å være småbarnsforeldre bruker det. Jeg er far til to kids, for eksempel. Hæ? Er du en geitebukk, eller hva er det du innbiller deg at du sier?

På tross av at det norske språket er langt fra fattig sliter jeg med å uttrykke hvor enormt irriterende jeg synes dette ordet og bruken av det er. Språket vårt er ikke fattig, men om det noen gang blir det, så kommer det til å være på grunn av disse personene som bruker slike ord. Er du en av dem? Du skulle faen meg hatt deg en på trynet.

Luke 6:41

I know, you don't often find me quoting the bible on this blog. Or anywhere else, for that matter. But right now it says exactly what I want to say.

Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

Has anyone else been following the debate - if that's the word I want - on what to do about the recent assault rape epidemic here in Oslo? Fabian Stang, our mayor, said something sensible on the issue this weekend ... that maybe we should consider trying to get some kind of control of the asylum seekers (quite a few of them probably no longer asylum seekers, but illegal immigrants) who are committing an absolutely grotesque percentage of these criminal acts. Of course the PC brigade was immediately up in arms and frothing at the mouth, as per usual, over this hideously racist idea. :-(

The amazing thing is that these people really don't see the logs in their own eyes. They critize Stang for branding a whole group as criminals, and stigmatizing people by generalizing in this way. I disagree with that, I don't think Stang is stigmatizing these uncivilized barbarians, I think they manage that just fine on their own. But what I want to point out is how their argument then continues. It's pretty amazing.

Let me see if I can sum it up here. I've seen this argument, if that's the word I want, pop up a number of times in the past few days. This problem has to do with attitudes that men have. Rapes happen because men need an attitude adjustment. Here it's explained over eight paragraphs. Men are the problem.

Stigmatizing whole groups and overgeneralizing is a really bad thing, mmkay?

When I grow up ...

... I want to get a job in the equal rights factory. I just need to learn a little bit about the trade first, like what measurement unit is used for equal rights.

Is this guy trolling now, or what is this?

Our high percentage of women in the workplace is one of the most important reasons why our economy is so much better than in other countries. Srsly? It's not because of the oil?

This is why this nation is going to have an absolutely brutal awakening the day that very finite resource runs out. We don't have leaders, or politicians generally, that talk about what really needs doing and how we can get it done. What are we going to live on when the oil's all gone? Seriously? Sure, he's not saying that the oil isn't important. Just that equal rights are more important. o_O Having women work and pay taxes, and not just men, means a lot more resources being pumped into our economy. I get that that's what he's saying. But.

Isn't it the case right now that something like 75% of all Norwegian women above the age of 20 are actually already in the workforce? I think that in the age group 30-49 it's 80%, or maybe even closer to 85%. So how much exactly does Lysbakken think we have to go on? The overwhelming majority of Norwegian women already work. I despair at a leading figure in national politics actually thinking that that is the issue.

Then again, anyone who'd name their child 'Aurora' clearly has some kind of problem.

WHY can't there be a rule ...

... that says that before you can write about something in the newspapers, you have to show that you actually understand what you're talking about?

This happens all the time, I've ranted about it before too, maybe not in so many words, but it's part of what I mean when I talk about how debates are skewed because we focus on the wrong things. We can't discuss matters properly when the starting point is wrong; we end up talking about the wrong things. Here's a good example. Inger Anne Olsen, who I usually never agree with, writes about children produced through surrogacy and the difficult legal situation surrounding them.

Information for foreigners: Surrogacy is illegal in Norway, which means that this difficult situation is created by the parents who use surrogacy - it's legal in a number of US states, it's legal in India, so they blithely assume that Norwegian authorities will just accept the fait accompli when they show up with their babies. Fortunately it's not quite that easy.

Because of a few high profile cases, there was quite a bit of debate of this issue earlier this year. Feelings ran high, of course. Didn't make the debate any better; rather the opposite. There were a lot of assumptions made that either were blatantly wrong or didn't make sense, which, as you can imagine, drove me up the wall sometimes. :-) One of the wrongheaded assumptions that keep popping up is about the fact that the rules about who is the mother of a child, and who the father, are supposedly so rigid in this country. (Although they're the same rules as almost everywhere else, AFAIK.) The woman who gives birth to the child is its mother; her husband is its father, unless some other man should actively dispute this. This is, according to the surrogacy advocates, so incredibly old-fashioned and behind the times. How is it possible for a woman whose DNA is in a baby to not be the mother? How dares the state deny her her rights!!1 o_O

This is what so many people don't get, and it seriously annoys the shit out of me. Olsen doesn't get it either. She really takes it a step further though - she writes, get this:

The rule about the mother has its roots in simple biological conditions. The rules about who the father is cement monogamy as the ideal, preserves male control over the woman's offspring and her body, and also preserves society's need for system and order.

WTF??? I consider myself a feminist, but seriously, Olsen needs to get her head out of her ass.

She's vaguely right about the last point, but not for the reason she thinks. And she's right about the first point too - but again, for a different reason than she thinks. Here's the deal, and I don't know how it's possible to not understand this:

Parents don't have rights. Children have rights - parents only have duties. Any child has the right to parents, but no parent has any rights to a child. Not in this country. That's why we call the Child and Parent Act simply the Child Act for short - because it regulates the rights of the child and the duties of the parents, and the former are the most important. Since Norwegian children have various rights, first and foremost the right to have parents and to receive proper care from them, the state, whose duty it is to maintain these rights, must have some way of enforcing them. In other words, legal parents must be provided - eg, the state must know where to place the paternal responsibility, it must know whose these duties will be in the eyes of the law. Therefore, pater est. Because the law really only cares about the law. The state gives the child legal parents - people who are legally obliged to provide the care the child needs. What more is the law supposed to do?

The surrogacy advocates seem to be struggling with the misapprehension that the law can regulate biological parenthood. What can I say, they're wrong. The law is what we have for the legal stuff. And if you're a parent, it doesn't give you any rights. I have to say I think it's pretty incredible that someone can be so involved in this debate, and so much a part of it, that they actually go all the way to producing a child via a surrogate mother, and they still don't understand this basic point.

Kinda makes you wonder about some people.

In other news, I'm curious to see who will be named for this year's Nobel Peace Prize tomorrow. Thorbjørn Jagland was on the Daily Review tonight talking about how living up to the Will is such a big priority for the Committee. So I'm fully expecting their choice to be something seriously fucked up. :-D

Congratulations to Catalonia

September 25th, 2011 - a day to remember. Today the hopefully last ever bullfight was fought in Barcelona. Catalonia has made a great stride for animal rights in Spain, when they decided a little over a year ago to ban this repulsive tradition as the first region in the mainland kingdom (the Canary Islands had the foresight to do so twenty years ago). Good for them, but first and foremost good for these poor animals that will no longer have to suffer a confusing and agonizing death as entertainment for a bunch of bloodthirsty degenerates.

This latter group will actually benefit from this also, since while emotionally stunted people may find it amusing to watch animals being tortured, doing so contributes to their moral corruption and general mental decline. In the long run it'll be better for them, even if they don't have the brains to comprehend this themselves.

It is possible that this good news is premature, since the pro-animal torture camp are looking to prevent the law taking effect (as it is intended to do on January 1st, 2012) by gathering a certain number of signatures in favor of continued torture. So let's all hope that Catalonian lawmakers have cool heads and some sense of empathy.

If they don't, and this grotesque tradition continues, let us hope that all future fights will end like this.

On a personal note, I was in Barcelona earlier this year, as you may remember. We drove by the bullfighting arena a couple of times, and I was ... impressed, if that's the word I want, by the size of it. It's a very large place, I remember thinking it must seat a hell of a lot of people. Now it says in the papers here that the arena was sold out for this last fight, and that this means an audience of 18.000. Well, the story was also on the Daily Review, and they of course had pictures ... moving pictures even ... that I got the impression were from tonight's fight. Did anyone else see that? Because seriously, that place was not sold out. Far from it. It was more than half empty. If that was tonight, then one may have reason to hope that even the Spanish aren't an entirely lost cause.

Free Bård Hoksrud

Yes, I know the headline is flippant - he hasn't been imprisoned and of course he won't be, either. But it's my blog and I'll be flippant if I want to.

Brief recap: Progress Party MP Bård Hoksrud was in Riga recently and made the mistake of visiting a brothel, where he paid an employee for sex. I call it a mistake because he is married, and had not agreed on this visit with his wife beforehand. The visit to the brothel, not to Riga. ;-) I feel really bad for his wife, this must be so upsetting for her.

But for the media, it's a goldmine. Because, get this, here in Norway it's illegal to pay for sex. It's legal to sell it, just not to buy it. Screwy, I know. But it's even crazier than it sounds - it's even illegal for Norwegian citizens to pay for sex in countries where it's legal to pay for sex. You know, like in Latvia, say. So now that Hoksrud has been busted for this, he has committed a crime ... it will go on his criminal record and he has to pay a fine of 25,000 crowns. And he will go down in history as the first Norwegian ever to be sentenced for this crime. Poor guy.

How did he get busted, you ask? Well, he went on this trip not as an MP or as a party representative, but as a private citizen. Yet he traveled with two, or was it three, members of the party's youth organization. Not sure what's up with that, but he's relatively young, 38, so I guess they're his friends. Ahead of the trip, someone tipped off our biggest commercial TV channel, TV2, that Hoksrud was going to be using prostitutes while in Riga, so these damn hyenas sent over a camera crew that filmed the man with a concealed camera. They interviewed the prostitute and I don't know what all. Now they pretend to be proud of themselves. Scum.

So, talk about questionable tactics ... and for something so irrelevant to the general public. Not that I had a lot of respect for TV2, or the media in general, before this, but now it's definitely dropped several notches. If only they would be honest and admit that they do it for the ratings ... but no, it's for the public good. Gag me with a spoon.

One of the most annoying things about this is that pretty much every reporter you can find says that it's total BS what the Progress Party is saying that the media is out to get them and is giving them a much harder time than everyone else. Of course not, it's because they really are worse people than others, so they bring it on themselves. And then on the Daily Review tonight - this Hoksrud thing was the lead story - there's another piece of news about a mayor somewhere in ... Oppland county, I think? ... who's being charged with the sexual abuse of a minor. Supposedly he's been having sex with a girl who was only 13 when it started. Bad and wrong, totally. But was he named? No. Was the town named? No. Was his party affiliation given? No. Remind me again, how many hours did it take before Trond Birkedal's name was splashed all over the front pages ... ?

Anyway. This post is basically to say that I think TV2's methods are completely beyond the pale and that I think it's horrible how Hoksrud has been put in the metaphorical stocks after this happened. The law against buying sex is ridiculous, and it's absolutely idiotic that it supposedly applies in other countries too. Yes, I do get the argument that those who make the law should also follow the law. But some laws are just wrong. I wish I could say that I think that as a principle, I think the law should be obeyed, regardless of what it is ... that this is essential to the functioning of a civilized society ... but I don't really have any principles, and I break another law every day with a clear conscience and never a second thought. It's a bad law, it should be broken. And I can certainly not accept that Norwegian law should trump the laws of other sovereign states in the territories of those states.

Hoksrud was against the law from the start, is still against it and voted against it when it was passed in Parliament. As, IMO, every sensible MP ought to have done. (And maybe did ... >:-) I am absolutely not a Progress Party fan, but I am totally with them on this one. Would our politicians really accept this in reverse? In Spain, for instance, the age of consent is 13. Here in Norway, it's 16. Is it OK for a Spanish citizen to come to Norway and have sex with 14-year-olds? If not, why? That's the law in his country, after all. But no, it wouldn't be OK, because Norwegian law applies in Norway ... just like Latvian law applies in Latvia, and under Latvian law it's perfectly legal to pay for sex. So that this is even an issue is ridiculous.

What should be the case under discussion here, and what TV2 should be looking into, is who tipped them off and why. Does someone want to get Hoksrud out of politics, and if so, why? Someone clearly has a grudge against the guy ... and it's someone pretty close to him too, obviously. Now that's something I find interesting. But obviously that doesn't sell as well as a sex scandal. >:-(

A pundit was on the Daily Review tonight too, discussing the whole thing with some talking head from TV2 ... he said that the problem here is the techniques the reporters used, and that even though 'no one condones what Hoksrud has done' they totally crossed the line by following him like they did. Which, yes, was a gross invasion of his privacy and they should be prosecuted for it. But I want to say that I for one do condone what Hoksrud did. I have no problem with it. It should be legal. Yes, it was wrong of him to hurt his wife's feelings as he has no doubt done ... but that is the only thing he has done that any of us can condemn him for. But just paying for sex? I personally would never be a prostitute and my instinct is that it must be a pretty shitty job (but I know I'm wrong in some cases), but if one party is willing to pay and the other party is willing to sell, then I really don't see the problem.

Hoksrud was on the news too, and he was interviewed by some NRK reporter who stuck a microphone in his face while he said all the usual things about how he was so sorry and it was a crazy mistake and he's never done such a thing before. The reporter actually had the gall to ask, 'Can you say with your hand on your heart that you have never paid for sex before?'

Hoksrud was all contrite and said he totally accepted culpability, etc. But what he should have said was, IMO:

That's none of your fucking business, bitch!!

It's none of any of our business. This is between Hoksrud and his wife. I don't know what political life in this country is coming to if this is seriously as big a deal as all that. The guy is human, OMG, stop the press! >:-( Aside from the fact that I would never vote for his party, if I was in his constituency, I would seriously consider voting for him now.

Latskap? Whatever

De fleste som leser dette har sikkert hørt Richard Dawkins' lille aforisme om at vi alle er ateister. Gunnar skrev et innlegg hvor han regnet litt på det der for et par uker siden. Der har det oppstått en delvis interessant debatt. Den har sklidd ut, nå snakker folk om gudsbevis og sånt. Gjesp. Jeg slang ut en kommentar som hørtes flåsete ut men som jeg mener 100%. Jeg fikk et pussig svar ... pussig fordi jeg hadde fått inntrykk av at han som skrev det er en fornuftig fyr, men tydeligvis ikke bestandig. (Antar at det er samme fyren som skrev de kommentarene jeg syntes var fornuftige, i hvert fall. Ikke så godt å vite på nett bestandig. o_O)

Det svaret inspirerte meg til å skrive denne bloggposten. Tar den på norsk siden det opprinnelige innlegget og kommentarene er på norsk. Jeg skrev, og som sagt mener jeg det fra dypet av den sjelen jeg ikke har, at jeg virkelig er så glad for at jeg gir så fullstendig faen i alt som heter gudsbevis og argumenter for guds eksistens og alt det våset der - jeg sa ikke faen da, prøver å være litt mer høflig borte enn hjemme, liksom - sånn at jeg kan bruke tida mi på mer fornuftige ting.

(Merk at jeg skrev at jeg kan gjøre det. Hvis jeg ville det altså. For det meste ser jeg selvsagt bare på søppel-TV, spiser sjokolade og hører på Millennium-trilogien for femte gang.)

I alle fall. Dette fikk en tilsynelatende fornuftig kommentarskribent til å anklage meg for intellektuell latskap og for å lese rosablogger. Dere som kjenner meg kan kanskje gå god for at 'interiør og sminke' ikke står øverst på lista over ting jeg beskjeftiger meg med, sånn generelt? (Det ville vel fremmede skjønne ganske fort også antar jeg hvis de fikk se leiligheten min ... eller fjeset mitt.) Jeg må si at jeg synes at dette er en urimelig påstand, og jeg trodde som sagt at denne fyren var mer fornuftig enn som så. Jeg håper at det bare er leseforståelsen hans det er noe feil med. Det kan egentlig se sånn ut. I hvert fall.

Alle former for latskap appellerer sterkt til meg, men den intellektuelle typen prøver jeg så godt jeg kan å unngå. (Den er heldigvis på mange måter den minst krevende å motstå. Man trenger ikke reise seg engang.) Men hvor mye energi skal man egentlig bruke på å argumentere mot nissen? Folk debatterer oppad vegge og nedad stolpe om hvilke egenskaper guden deres har, hvordan den gir seg til kjenne, hva den vil, hva den har gjort, hva den tenker, hva den mener og jeg vet ikke hva det er for noe alt dette sludderet folk kaster bort nærmest uendelige mengder tid og mental energi på. Det må de vel forsåvidt få lov til, dessverre. Men jeg for min del ser overhodet ikke noe poeng i å bruke verken tid eller krefter på å diskutere egenskaper og meninger som det påstås skal tilligge en skapning som ingenting tyder på i det hele tatt eksisterer. Jeg sitter ikke her om kveldene og begraver meg i argumentasjon for eller imot at Odin ikke ville ha vært allvitende uten input fra Hugin og Munin. Jeg driter i det, for han fins ikke!! Han fantes ikke i vikingtiden heller, han var bare innbilning! Innbilning, hører dere!!?

Hvor mye tankevirksomhet må jeg bedrive i forhold til Odin og hans magiske tryllerievner før jeg ikke er intellektuelt lat lenger?

Jeg synes slett ikke at det er intellektuell latskap å gi beng i gud og Jesus og hele bøtteballetten, sammen med julenissen, påskeharen, tannféen og Mr Hankey. Tvert imot synes jeg at det er moralsk latskap å kaste bort tid på dette utdaterte tankespinnet.* Vi lever i en virkelig verden, folkens!! Full av alt mulig rart og utrolig som faktisk beviselig virkelig finnes! Mennesker sulter i hjel as we speak - akkurat det bryr jeg meg litt mindre om, men tigrene dør ut og elefantenes samfunn kollapser. Biene forsvinner og matproduksjonen sjangler på kanten av stupet snart. Mikronesia synker i havet og de aller fleste fiskestammer er redusert til en tragisk rest. Dere som sitter og surrer om tanker om det høyeste vi kan tenke oss og kritikk av Anselm, polyteisme og kontigente guddommer ... dere burde faen meg skamme dere!! Hva feiler dere?? Se dere rundt! Bli voksne, legg fra dere dette ubrukelige våset og gjør noe nyttig!

Eller sagt på en annen måte:

STFU AND GET BACK TO WORK!!

*Mr Hankey er ikke utdatert da, selvfølgelig. Det sier seg vel nesten selv, men.

There's no such thing as a free circumcision

So, there's an election coming up - only municipal and county, but still an election - and of course the media's chock full of all kinds of 'hot issues' where most Norwegian politicians actually more or less agree, if you really look into it, but they have to pretend to totally disagree and be appalled at the others' irresponsible ways. Oy vey. I hate election campaigns. I never watch the debates or anything ... it's pointless, and for this election that's coming up now it's really beyond pointless, because it's a local election but they've still got party leaders on the debates. Now that seriously pisses me off. They should be quarantined. I'm supposed to be voting for people here in Oslo, what do I care what Jens Stoltenberg or Siv Jensen have to say? Fuck 'em.

But anyway. That's not really what this blog post is about. It's about one of these issues that isn't very hot, but maybe should be ... as in, maybe we should be talking about it more. I've just seen it mentioned in a few places, a few short newspaper articles. It's one of these things that we can't really have a big debate about, because that'll be offensive to religious minorities, and ... Well, people are chickens, basically. As well as ignorant. I really don't think that a lot of people who 'don't see the harm' in male circumcision have really looked into it. I wonder if those politicians who want circumcision - or male genital mutilation as we might just as well call it - to be freely available are aware that more than a hundred baby boys die in the US every year as a direct result of their circumcisions. I would love to ask some Health Department officials about that. Hmm.

In this country, hospitals used to circumcise baby boys up until 2004, but then they stopped. Now our government wants to reintroduce the practice. A lot of surgeons don't want to be part of it, because they know that it's a totally useless and potentially harmful practice that will of course take resources away from surgeries that are actually necessary treatment for other children. You know, sick children. But the government wants to force it through anyway (what a surprise) and want to offer, in their phrasing, 'free circumcision' to parents who want it for their sons. o_O

In the past I've written about how public debate is skewed in this country because we talk about side issues or we attack things from totally the wrong angle ... we don't discuss the real issues, we always get sidetracked. This is nothing unique to Norway, of course. It happens everywhere and all the time. And this is a really good example of what I mean when I say that we talk about things the wrong way. There's no such thing as a free circumcision.

This election campaign is like any other, it's presented as a smorgasbord of options for the voter and we just have to find out what we want. Do you want more of X, then vote Labor, do you want more Y instead, then vote Right. Or whatever. But it's presented so depressingly irrationally. It's not being talked about the right way. The question really isn't, do you want free kindergarten for all under-threes, or whatever, then vote Socialist Left. No. The question is, are you willing to pay, let's say 300 crowns more in taxes per month so that free kindergarten can be made available to all under-threes? That is what we should be discussing. Not only what we want, but what we are willing to give up to get it.

Because there's no such thing as free kindergarten. There's no such thing as free, full stop. No such thing. Remember those goddamn idiots who were in the papers last winter, or whenever it was, bragging about their foolproof system for tricking Ruter, Oslo's public transport company? They never bought tickets; instead, they paid a sum of money into a shared account which was used to pay the fines for those members who were caught riding the subway or whatever without a ticket. Since they were students, they were able to save as much as 2,50 per day by doing this. (2 crowns 50, which is like fifty US cents. Whoop dee fucking doo.) But of course they weren't doing it for the selfish reason of wanting to save money. Oh no, of course not. They were doing it as a quiet protest, as part of their belief that public transport should be 'free'. Give me a fucking break. I wanted to bitch slap these idiots, seriously. There is no such thing as free. Every service in a society has a price and something else has to be sacrificed to make it happen. Welcome to the real world.

Nothing is free, someone pays for everything. The way we've organized this society - which I believe is the best way - means that it's the tax payers' money that pays for it. Part of what this entails is that we all have to pay for things we don't need or don't want. Some people can't bear the thought of that; I personally don't have a problem with it as a matter of principle, but I do think that there have got to be some limits. A line must be drawn somewhere. Spend tax money on salaries for elected officials, sure, but let them pay for their own vacations. For instance. And another example, an even better one, is that while I do pay my taxes happily, I am not happy with the idea that the money I have worked for will be spent on letting delusional fools mutilate their defenseless babies because they think some murderous desert god is telling them to.

There's no such thing as a free circumcision, and I don't want to pay for it. But here's an idea: Take the money, and then give that extra funding to the Child Protective Agency instead. They obviously need it.

Velkommen til meningsdiktaturet

Det er mye en skal høre før øra detter av ... eller lese før øya ramler ut, kanskje? Det er vel kjent for de fleste at det er begrenset hva man har lov til å mene i dette landet, og særlig om visse emner. Jeg er ikke prinsipielt imot sanksjoner på uttrykte meninger - det regner jeg med at de fleste har skjønt som har lest litt her ;-) - jeg synes det er rett og viktig at vi nettopp har muligheten til å sanksjonere mot dem som går seg helt ut på de metaforiske viddene. Men slik grensene er satt nå er de alt for snevre.

Vi har det allikevel veldig bra her i forhold til hvor innskrenka det har blitt i Sverige, dessverre.

Men vi har et ganske påtakelig meningsdiktatur her på berget også. Som altså hviler spesielt tungt over visse emner, og tildels ødelegger debatten om disse. Innvandring og religion er vel de to mest åpenbare eksemplene. Lenge var det ikke mulig å diskutere innvandring ordentlig, man ble jo kalt rasist og nazist ved den minste provokasjon. Dette er heldigvis i ferd med å bedre seg, det er faktisk mye bedre allerede. Nazistempelet går snart tørt for blekk. :-) Men vi er ikke på helt trygg grunn ennå. (Apropos å gå seg ut på metaforiske vidder ... o_O)

Noen ganger blir dette ekstremt tydelig. Noen ganger sier folk det faktisk bare rett ut. Les dette debattinnlegget. WTF? Jeg må sitere litt.

I ingressen påpekes det at det er blitt stuerent å snakke negativt om islam. Javel, og hva så? Det bør da for faen være 'stuerent' å snakke negativt om ALT. Hvis det er noe negativt ved et eller annet i den virkelige verden, så må man da pokker kunne si det høyt. Det skulle bare mangle. Men verre skal det bli.

Skribenten, som er en eller annen jusstudent jeg aldri har hørt om, skriver litt om innvandringsbarometeret for 2010 og at det er kjipe tilstander i Europa for tiden, og dette gjør at nye grupperinger har fått tilslutning hos folket. Så kommer det:

At nye partier blomstrer som følge av usikkerhet blant folk flest, er ikke nødvendigvis negativt. For eksempel har det økende frykten for klimaødeleggelser medført oppblomstring av grønne partier. Dette er grupperinger som i utgangspunktet har vært små, men som gjennom det økte fokuset på miljø har tiltrukket seg tilhengere. Miljøpartiene har nå blitt en betydningsfull aktør på den politiske arenaen i Europa.

Men også andre bevegelser har klart å utnytte tomrommet, partier som klarer å profitere på den økte misnøyen mot innvandring og muslimer. I Sverige har Sverigedemokraterna for første gang passert sperregrensen og kommet inn i Riksdagen. I Nederland er frihetspartiet til Geert Wilders blitt landets tredje største, mens det mørkeblå Sveitsiske Folkepartiet oppnådde 29 prosent av stemmene ved siste valg.

Nei, som sagt, velkommen til meningsdiktaturet. Det politiske landskapet endrer seg, og det er positivt så lenge folk mener det rette. Det er derimot ikke bra at folk forandrer mening hvis de nye meningene deres er de gale meningene. Og så avslutter fyren fordundre meg med å skryte av demokratiet ved å påstå at visse typer meninger bør undertrykkes.

Man skal virkelig høre mye ...

If I met Richard Dawkins ...

... I would ask him if he thinks that it's OK for me to kick my dog - I mean, not just on a whim, but as punishment, like when I see it biting a shoe or something - because my neighbor smacks his kids upside the head when they talk back to him. I assume he thinks it's not a problem that I kick my dog. Cause hitting your kids is way worse, so I get a pass, right?

I can only assume that Mr Dawkins would be on my side in this.

Back to the real world where normal people live: I really cannot understand people who use this type of argument. Seriously. If you genuinely use this as a rule to live by - Y is worse than X, therefore we cannot/should not discuss/focus on/attempt to change X. How do these people function? How do they manage to function in their daily lives? I don't get it.

No, I tell a lie ... of course I do get it. The fact of the matter is that these people - such as Richard Dawkins, sadly - do not believe in this argument. They do not believe that this is a good way to live. I know this because if they did believe it, and if they did live their lives like that, then they seriously couldn't function in any kind of normal capacity. So they don't believe the argument. They're just using it to make someone shut up.

I find this both hypocritical and pathetic.

But of course, I shouldn't complain about this, because somewhere in Azerbaijan right now there's probably a journalist being beaten up for saying that President Aliyev doesn't really have superpowers.

Silly me.

Is food expensive in Norway?

That's an issue where opinions are divided, to say the least. It's what they call a hot topic of discussion. I'm not going to say all that much about it tonight ... believe me, this is something I can talk about for a looong time. I won't do that tonight. I just have to get something off my chest that is highly relevant to this debate.

It's also relevant to a lot of other issues that are similarly hotly debated in this country. Most of them, probably. This is because - I think - we as a society don't have any real problems, so we tend to bury ourselves in our non-problems. And then we get too caught up in details ... which is negative, because it distracts us from the real core of the issue.

In this case, as to whether food is expensive or not, but also in a lot of other debates, a lot of arguments tend to be brought up that aren't relevant, but because Norwegians are stupid (like everyone else), they are nevertheless perceived as relevant, so we talk about them and waste time on them and lose sight of the real issue. That's what I'm complaining about tonight. :-) All these non-arguments that people actually accept as having something to do with the problem. Or, OK, 'problem'.

I'll give you an example. A Eurostat report was published this week on how much wage earners across Europe are spending on food in terms of percentage of income, so that brought the debate to the boil again. And in one of these discussions someone said that it isn't true that food is cheap, it's expensive. And his example was that if you go to the store to buy your dinner, you have to pay probably 90 crowns for a Big One [frozen deep pan pizza] and then you need something to drink with it too, and a Coke will cost you another 20. So that's well over 100 crowns for just one dinner.

WTF???

This is the guy's argument. But how is it an argument? It has nothing to do with anything. What he's saying is that he's a stupid idiot who can't cook. OK, there's no law against that. But what the hell does that have to do with the food prices??! And how dumb do you have to be to think that there is a connection??

Rant over for now. I could go on about this all night. Don't get me started. But if you're starting from where that guy is coming from then there is NO FUCKING POINT in having this discussion. You're talking out of your ass. And your arguments are, predictably, shit.

These people make me sick

This shouldn't surprise anyone - I am not a fan of Jakten på den 6. sans (The Search for the 6th Sense). This is a retarded show for dipshit idiots, and, as you will have guessed, it's a TVNorge production. It's now in its ... I want to say third season. No, fourth? Whichever, it's way too many. It's a competitive reality show where 'psychics' compete to be the ... most psychic, I guess, and win a trophy. They have to do a bunch of retarded things, obviously. I'm sorry if I offend anyone, I shouldn't be this bitchy about a show that I don't even watch - I've only managed to force myself through less than one episode, and that was way back in the first season.

This should tell you a lot about how stupid it is. I couldn't bear to watch one entire episode, and I watch The Bold and the Beautiful EVERY DAY. Well, every weekday. But still. I record it when I go away on vacation. This should really tell you something.

Anyway ... I despise this show and everyone on it, they are either deluded fools or conniving fraudsters. I hardly know which is worse. The latter means that TVNorge is staffed by idiots (so I'd probably go with that option) and the former means that they are exploiting fellow human beings in a despicable manner. Take your pick. I don't watch it so by my own principles I shouldn't really comment. But just this once I can't stop myself. Last night they stooped to a new low ... so low, in fact, that I wouldn't have believed it even from these scumbags.

In each episode the 'psychics' get several different tasks that they have to complete, related to their imaginary abilities. I'll leave those up to your hopefully somewhat less vivid imaginations. But the third and last task of yesterday's show was really something else. I could hardly believe it when I read it. WTF is wrong with people??

The con artists were given the task of communicating telepathically with Rigmor Johnsen from beyond the grave.

WTF??!?

This is a girl who at the age of 16 was sexually assaulted and brutally murdered, then left like a piece of trash in a stairwell.

Her assumed killer - he's served 16 years in jail for the murder, but the case has been highly controversial ever since it happened - is still alive. For all I know any number of Johnsen's family members are still alive too. Obviously not her parents - she was killed in December 1957 - but siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews. I don't know, but it's perfectly possible. But who cares about their feelings, screw 'em all for ratings!!

I think this is so despicable and so low and disgusting that I don't have words to describe it. (Contrary to appearances ...) Are there no limits to what these people are willing to do, how low they will sink? What were they thinking? What were they going to ask her? Did Torgersen really do it or was it someone else? Any other questions I don't even want to think about.

These people make me sick.

Whines and complaints

Sometimes sucky things happen. It's a fact of life that can't be avoided. It doesn't necessarily help to whine about them, but it may help.

My phone died this weekend, or at least almost died ... enough for it to be rendered unusable for all practical purposes, and enough for me to be incommunicado for most of Saturday without realizing it. That's not such a big deal, except that it resulted in me missing something super cool - lunch, a guided tour of the Viking Ship House and dinner with, among others, James Randi. Yes, seriously. Instead I spent the day in a 300 year old basement. A basement full of chocolate, but still.

What's really annoying is that it was all my own fault, because first of all I should have switched over to my new phone ages ago, but didn't because of misplaced affection for an inanimate object, and if I had done so this would not have happened, and second, if I had tried to call one of my fellow podcasters instead of pootling around among the chocolate, I would have soon realized that something was amiss and that this was the reason why it had appeared that they had not called me. (My phone would not have worked, but we have a phone at Friends too, so.) In other words, I have only myself to blame, and of course that only makes it worse.

And what is totally annoying is that now I have lost I don't know how many people's phone numbers - the very thing I have always thought I would somehow guard myself against. Drat. Again, I have brought it upon myself. Some numbers survived, some I actually remember and some I have dug out from here and there ... but far from all, so if you have my number and you think I should have yours, please text me and include your name in the message. I need some help reconstructing my metaphorical phone book. Some of you may already have been contacted. :-)

Of course one misfortune doesn't come alone, so naturally we had to have a meeting with our new boss* at work this afternoon and it had to be seriously frustrating and ... well, I probably shouldn't go into too much detail. Except to say that the way this guy treats me really raises my hackles. I'm sure he thinks it's all fine and dandy. But he would never ever talk to me that way if I were a man. And it's flabbergasting that he thinks we can get a great dialogue going when he won't even let me finish my sentences. o_O He doesn't treat the guys like that. Not that he's super swell towards them either. But there is a difference - the guys picked up on it too - and it is because I am a woman. That seriously pisses me off.

A lot of men tend to think that Norway is a totally equal society - that the job is done here, so to speak. But it's not. It probably never will be, human biology being what it is. But it's much further from being done than a lot of you guys think. Because there are so many among you who will say things to a woman and act towards a woman in ways that you would NEVER act or speak to a man. It would never occur to you. But if the other person is a woman, it is second nature.

That's something for my male readers to think about. You may not think what you're about to say is necessarily patronizing and/or infantilizing - for instance - but think for a moment - would you really say the same thing to a man?

*Not a new presence at the company, but newly become our boss.

Police incompetence

Presumably everyone reading this is familiar with the EU Directive 2006/24/EC - the Data Retention Directive (DRD). It's what we call the DLD here in Norway, obviously. Most of you will probably have heard about today's major piece of non-Japan-related news as well - Europol's bust of what they're calling the world's biggest pedophilia ring. Suspects have been found in 30 countries around the world. Almost three dozen of them in Norway, too, but none have been arrested here, due to lack of evidence. Norwegian police are now saying that if only we had had the DRD implemented, they would not have dropped the ball on this one. (So it's not really their fault, I assume is the subtext they're projecting.)

This is transparently untrue - they're saying that the IP addresses are too old, but this investigation has been going on for three years. The data relevant to crimes committed by Norwegian citizens was handed over to our police in July last year. So even if we had had the DRD, the necessary info would have been erased either way. As I say, a transparent excuse.

But what I want to rant about is what a blatantly obvious setup this is for the police to push their own political agenda, and how depressing it is that our media is so worthless that they're allowing themselves to be used in this way. If we had media worthy of our respect, we would be getting some real facts, and we would be getting the info we need to really make sense of events. But no. Our media, like everywhere else in the world, is useless and almost worthless. It's pathetic.

But the problems don't stop there. Our police are also lazy incompetents. I can conclude in no other way from their desperate and undignified pursuit of the DRD. I don't believe for a second that they would catch any more criminals with it than without. They will catch more criminals if they do a better job investigating. That's it. Of course they'll tell you that the DRD will be a fantastic tool to help them investigate. Personally I don't believe that for a second. But even if it were true, it would still be unacceptable.

The police say that if they had the DRD, and could monitor digital traffic 'properly', they could solve so many crimes, in fact they could head off x number of crimes before they even happen. Hey, you know what? If the state were to install surveillance cameras in all our living rooms, you could prevent even more crimes from happening, you'd know while we were still just planning them. So maybe that's an idea? Arne Johannessen might actually think so. I used to have some respect for him, but not any more.

He actually recently presented as an argument in favor of the DRD the following: that if we had the DRD, it would be much easier for people 'to prove their innocence'.

WTF??

How can you be a police officer in this country for decades and not understand the fundamental principle of the Rechtsstaat? How is that possible? How does that even work? And why aren't more people freaking over it?

As a citizen, it is not my business to prove that I am innocent. I am innocent. It is the business of the state to prove that I am not.

Do your jobs, pigs. You don't need the DRD for that. Less coffee and more work is what you need. >:-(

Totalitarianism and godlessness

There's been a debate going on over at unfiltered perception for the past few days ... if you can call it a debate. If you read Norwegian you can check it out here. It's kind of entertaining. It's just also really annoying, because in order for a discussion to be in any way meaningful, all the participants have to agree on some fundamental issues. You know, like what words mean. That's going spectacularly wrong over on that post. There are a couple of old clichés being trotted out there which I could clear up, but I won't, because it's 100% a waste of my time & energy to participate in that discussion. Which is sad, but there you go. One thing though I do want to write a little about, and that's what I'm going to do here.

I'm talking about the old saw that atheism kills, because all the worst regimes in the world have been atheistic, and millions of people have been killed by Stalin and other evil dictators, and it's all the fault of ATHEISM. Boo! This is incorrect. You hear it repeated by theists all the time. They think it's one of their real trump cards. After all, how can atheism be anything but bad when it leads to oppression and mass murder?

Most theists who use this argument fail to appreciate its most obvious flaw - that even if this were true, that still would not constitute evidence for the existence of any god. But it's not true. Here's why.

No, actually, here's a quote posted by one of the so-called debaters over at Gunnar's ... it's Alexander Solzhenitsyn talking about atheism, he says. That may be disputable. But here's what he said.

Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened." Since then I have spend well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened."

This is rather interesting, actually. Quite a few theists - not necessarily the one who posted this quote, I'm speaking generally - tend to slam atheists for, what should I call it ... bending to human authority. Eg, they say that we 'believe' in Darwin, or that whatever Richard Dawkins says we all swoon over it. This is what is called an argument from authority. It is an inductive fallacy. A statement is not true because Charles Darwin said it - it is true because it is true. If it even is true. You have to check that out for yourself. The quote above is simply Solzhenitsyn's opinion. The fact that he said it isn't in itself an argument for its veracity. We have to look beyond that. Which is rather beside the point here, but I always find it amusing when theists make arguments from authority, because that is too often what they chastise us for supposedly doing. :-)

Anyway. Men have forgotten God, and that's why it all went haywire. This is the claim. It is incorrect. The supposed situation where an atheist regime brutally oppresses and murders its own people - after, of course, outlawing religion - is a misinterpretation of reality, an oversimplification. First of all, there is no such thing as an atheist regime. That's not possible. Atheism is nothing - atheism isn't anything in itself, it's just an absence of something. An atheist is simply a person who lacks the god-shaped gap. :-) The fact that I am an atheist says nothing about me other than that I lack a faith in the divine. For more information than that, you need to look at other categories I fit into - that I am a skeptic and a secularist, for instance. And it's the same with the so-called atheist regime. If you look at all these evil states, you will see that they have something in common besides their divine forgetfulness. They are totalitarian. Most typically they are also Communist ... an ideology that looks fantastic on paper, but sadly does not take human nature into account, and therefore lends itself easily to totalitarianism. The USSR and China under Mao are the two regimes that are most often mentioned in this context - first and foremost, of course, the former. What with Stalin being the worst mass murderer in history and so on.

But the reason that his regime was so brutal and oppressive was not that it was atheistic - which it couldn't really have been, as I explained above - it was that it was totalitarian. This form of government tends to lead to oppression, because it can't tolerate dissent, but rather must suppress it. And in any human society, there will always be some dissent. So totalitarianism is generally a bad idea. Bad stuff happens. But it is totalitarianism that creates the bad stuff, not atheism. You can tell this because it is also totalitarianism that creates the 'atheism' - what Solzhenitsyn called 'forgetting God'.

Yes, totalitarian regimes are usually the same regimes that make organized religion illegal, ie, they 'ban God'. And this supposedly leads to all the bad stuff. But this is turning the situation completely on its head, and whenever you hear this argument being used, you can be certain that you're listening to a person who hasn't really looked into this issue properly. Totalitarian regimes create oppression and other bad stuff by their very nature. They also, and again by their nature, force out religion. It is especially Christianity that has suffered - if that's the word I want - from this fact of political reality. A totalitarian regime must outlaw Christianity, not because they want to be free from divine punishment, or because they are godless and immoral, or any such reason, but simply because Christianity is a competing totalitarian regime. This is true of a number of other religions as well - not all, Islam for instance is itself a fascist ideology and tends to become a totalitarian regime, rather than be suppressed by one. But a number of religions must be classed with Christianity in this respect. To a totalitarian regime, the message of these ideologies is irrelevant, and their moral value is irrelevant. They are simply competition, and that is why they must be got rid of. The whole point of totalitarianism is that the ideology - usually Communism - wants to dominate the entirety of society. This cannot be achieved with Christianity as an active factor ... especially not Catholic Christianity, which is the most dangerous in this respect, representing as it does an international and supranational organization. Therefore, Christianity, or whatever other religion can be expected to constitute a similar separate and independent entity within the state, cannot be permitted to continue its existence.

It's really very simple. Totalitarianism creates oppression. It does not do this because it is 'atheist'. Rather, it becomes 'atheist' - it forgets God, to keep with that metaphor - for the exact same reason that it creates oppression. The one is not the cause of the other; they are, rather, the unavoidable effects of the same cause. This is really very obvious once you think the matter through. In other words, when you hear this argument, it is usually not really an argument as such, but more of a ... regurgitation. Please bear that in mind. :-)

White Woman Syndrome

Although not 'missing' this time, but still, WWS seems to be what is kicking in all over Norwegian media right now. Maria Amelie (not her real name, which she has withheld from authorities since she arrived in 2002), an asylum seeker from Russia who has been staying illegally in this country for going on eight years, was finally arrested by police last night and will now be deported. Against her will, obviously ... if she was willing to leave, she would have done so when obliged to by the denial of her family's application for asylum.

There are several unusual things about this particular illegal immigrant (of which we have thousands upon thousands in this country - and I have to say that as a general rule the fact that our police aren't able to find and deport all of them is no reason to not deport the ones they do find) which her many defenders eagerly use to argue her case. She has learned perfect Norwegian, she has managed to get higher education - a Master's degree in some technological field - and she has worked umpteen hours as a volunteer for a couple of music festivals. In other words, she is exactly the kind of immigrant we want. She is a resource. We should be throwing citizenship at her! But no, she has to go and pieces of shit like Mullah Krekar get to say. Boo hiss, what a retarded country Norway is.

I won't say much about Krekar, that is a whole other blog post ... but I am afraid that those who think that if only the Progress Party were in power now, he would be out on his head and Maria Amelie would get to stay with no problems have it rather backwards. Their situations arise from different legal realities. Nobody wants Krekar here, come on. But we can't kick him out because of international obligations we have entered into voluntarily ... legal frameworks that deal with human rights and prohibit us from sending people out to where they risk capital punishment. These would still be in place, and would in all likelihood not be removed, under a Progress Party government. Personally I disagree with this as a matter of principle - I oppose the death penalty, but I also believe in the rights of sovereign states to institute and uphold their own laws. I don't think Iraq should have capital punishment on the books, but it is their choice to do so, and their right to punish their own citizens according to their own laws. If Krekar is guilty of such offenses under Iraqi law, that is his affair and not ours. But I digress. His situation is a paradox. His presence here is deeply offensive, but it is not relevant to Maria Amelie's situation.

Her difficulties stem from the fact that she is an asylum seeker who does not have the right to claim asylum. I've written about this before, and it's still just as simple as it was then. If you can prove that you are persecuted for some specific and objectively defined reasons, then you have the right to protection from your persecutors - ie, asylum. If you are not persecuted, you do not have the right to asylum. This is so incredibly simple to understand. If A, then B. If not A, then not B. In the case of Maria Amelie and her parents, there is no A, therefore, they have no right to B.

Where are her parents, by the way? They're still here, also illegal immigrants. Letting their daughter be sent back to Russia alone? Charming.

Anyway. This really is pretty simple. This woman doesn't have the right to asylum, she has been informed of this and has been instructed to leave the country (no doubt under threat of deportation; a threat which, if not explicit, is in any case completely obvious to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention) but has refused to do so. For whatever reason, she has over the past few months made herself into something of a celebrity, publishing and publicizing a book about her life (I haven't read this book - yet? - but it seems to have some lacunas). This was obviously rather risky. The police read the newspapers too. Last night she reaped the result of her choice to be high profile. A choice which in itself may be laudable, but which she must always have known carried some very specific risks.

I do agree that her situation must be very difficult. However, she has largely made it so herself - she has nothing to return to in Russia, she claims (she also claims to not be a Russian citizen, a claim disputed by Russian authorities, in fact) but how is this not due to the fact that she has refused to return there for seven years? Yes, she was only 16 when she arrived here, brought by her parents. But that was nine years ago - for the past seven years she has been entirely responsible for her own actions. At no time for the past seven and a half years has she ever had the legal right to remain in this country. She speaks Russian, Norwegian and no doubt English; she has a good education. She is young, strong and healthy. Of course she has something to return to in Russia. She has the chance to make a life there and make valuable contributions there - or she has the choice to return there and apply for a work permit in this country, so that she can return here legally. Something she should probably have done years ago, before - let's be honest - defrauding Norwegian tax payers of probably millions of crowns by getting an education she in fact had no right to.

I'm coming across as a callous bitch right now, I'm aware of that ... but that's the thing, the law is a callous bitch, and it has to be. That is how it ensures us all of our rights, and how it prevents the system that has created it from being exploited. An Amnesty representative was on the Daily Review tonight saying that the authorities' logic of making an example of Maria Amelie is just a scare tactic - letting her stay will absolutely not create an avalanche of illegals trying to trick the system by evading the police for long enough and then getting to stay despite having no right to do so. Sorry, Amnesty, I don't buy that. In the past, when we have had high numbers of immigrants from certain countries where basically no one has a right to asylum, information campaigns in those countries have had the effect of strongly reducing or almost removing those numbers. What is the reason that the opposite won't happen? Why should we risk it?

We have a rule in Norway that if you don't have the right to asylum, we can still let you stay, for what is called 'humanitarian reasons'. This may happen if you have what the authorities deem a particular connection to Norway, for instance. A lot of people are saying that Maria Amelie has such a connection, and therefore she should be allowed to stay. But her connection has no foundation in law. These people who defend her so strongly - do they really wish that such individuals as her should be exempt from the rule of the law?

I venture to say that they do not. In fact I am rather certain that many of these people are the very same who insist that the law be applied to these illegals, these criminals, these people who don't belong here. Why wish, even demand, an exception for this particular person? White Woman Syndrome. She is young, pretty, white, articulate, now even a celebrity of sorts. If this exact same situation had happened to a bearded, brown-skinned, Muslim-looking man, I'm sure his defenders would have numbered only a fraction of hers.

Which is exactly why we cannot let our emotions and our personal opinions decide in these matters. Justice for Maria Amelie, because we feel compassion for her, we can identify with her? No. The law must decide. That is the only way in which we can hope to achieve true justice.

You can read the final denial of appeal here. Maria Amelie's supporters must have leaked this document to the media - blacking out her real name, if that is her real name, but leaving the name of the bureaucrat who signed the document. Low blow.

How goddamn difficult is it ...

... to use a fucking escalator??!

When I was a little girl there were signs in shopping malls and train stations explaining how to use these incredibly simple devices.* These days you never see signs like that. Why the hell not?? It is SO painfully obvious that they are desperately needed. Bring back the written instructions, people are fucking idiots and NEED INSTRUCTIONS.

The group that suck hardest at using escalators is immigrants. Ie, people who are obviously immigrants, so, not from the first world. I don't know where these people come from, primitive backwards places with no escalators perhaps, because they clearly find them extremely difficult to use properly. You people need to connect with practical reality. To borrow a phrase from the one and only Eric Cartman, I hate you guys.

The second suckiest group is teenagers. Can be of any ethnicity. This should come as no surprise, because teenagers are retards. You also dress like idiots. I hate you even more.

The third group now appears to be growing and slowly reaching out to enfold EVERYONE ELSE IN THE CITY. What the fuck is wrong with people?? How can it be difficult to just use an escalator like a normal civilized considerate human being with the tiniest shred of intelligence?!

I don't understand how this can be difficult for people, but it very clearly is. They actually need help to carry out this extremely simple task. They need someone to make this clear for them.

STAND TO YOUR RIGHT.
WALK TO YOUR LEFT.

THERE I FIXED IT.

Oh, if only!!! Merry fucking Christmas.

*By 'incredibly simple' I mean simple to use, not to construct and maintain. No offense intended to any escalator repair technician who may be reading this. You guys do a great job.