A very cool find has been reported in Norway: a major Viking burial mound, several actually.

The site contains two monumental burial mounds, one of which contains a large stone casket. The other one is believed to contain remnants of a Viking ship and a so-called "long house," used as communal dwellings.

A Viking ship! That is so cool. If you want to see what other Viking ships look like, this site has some pictures.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 12:23 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Norway is the socialist worker paradise, paid for by the oil resources. This was just fascinating to me -- the Norwegian worker, excluding vacations, misses 4.8 weeks of work a year. That is stunning. It is said that it costs the government some $12 billion a year to cover the costs. Oh, and by the way, some 50% of the work force is working for the government in some capacity or another. How is this healthy for any society, that no one works and that half your work force is engaged in providing monopolistic social services to the other half? Who produces anything? How do you expect a society to grow, to thrive, to create, to do anything at all?

You cannot, in my view. The problem the Norwegians are now facing, according to the article, is that they are finally being called on this problem as American (you know, the great Satans) are buying or merging with Norwegian companies and not putting up with these practices.

Norwegian intellectuals do not like America or Americans. They are not alone in Europe, of course. But go, if you have a moment, and check out this article by Bjorn Staerk (Bear Strong for you non-Norsk speakers) on the famed Norwegian intellectual who thinks pro-American Norwegians should be put under surveillance and eventually on trial for their crime of supporting America. Truly shocking. I wonder why we bother to have relations at all sometimes with Norway.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:47 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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How unilateral, how interventionist, how one sided. A foreign group wants to interfere in the democratic process of another country! Call out the United Nations! Someone has to stop this madness, this threat to world peace, this act which has the potential to imbalance all of the delicate mechanisms by which international relations are maintained. Maybe we should get France involved.

What am I talking about? You mean you haven't heard? The Norwegians don't want us to re-elect President Bush and have started a website in order to raise money to purchase an advertisement in the Washington Post to tell us silly Americans that Norway was opposed to the war in Iraq and we should not reelect the President. You can read about it here.

The funny thing is how central Norway feels it is to this debate that their ad*, in the WaPo of all papers, is going to influence our election. Most of the US voters don't even read the Post! The best part, though, was this quote:

Geir Lundestad of the Nobel Institute in Norway . . . [says] "Everyone [of the power elite in Norway] is asking me, 'do you think we'll get rid of Bush in November?,' and that's a completely new situation," Lundestad said.

We'll get rid of Bush? Are they kidding?

If we did something like this, the Norwegian press would be all over our neocolonialist-imperialist-unilateralist-bomb dropping-cowboy hat wearing-ass. The Norwegians take themselves so seriously sometimes that it's just funny.

* corrected typo pointed out by eagle-eyed reader.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:59 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Another good reason why you should always be careful with your wallet: you may end up married without knowing it. At first this seemed really odd, but upon reflection it makes a lot of sense. You need a residency permit, you steal the identity of a woman, you marry her, you stay. I wonder how often this happens.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:25 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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