Music of ze week

Which is your favourite?

I like both Coldplay and Buena Vista, so I find the first song pretty interesting. It works!

Want to understand the Middle East?

Here are two excellent summaries of why things are the way they are in the middle east :-)

http://www.idleworm.com/nws/2002/11/iraq2.shtml
thanks Jasmina


click here if you have trouble loading the clip

Genocide

Genocide is a word that is bothering me these days. The mere fact that we have such a word in our vocabulary is absurd to me. But we have it and unfortunately we need it. It describes a phenomenon that is painfully real, also in our time.

The book I'm reading at the moment is Shaking Hands With the Devil by Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire (right) who was the commander of the UN peace keeping force in Rwanda during the genocide there in '94. It lasted for one hundred days.

You know how many people were slaughtered every minute during those hundred days, on average? 5,5. Human beings, a minute. And that is based on conservative figures.

I'd recommend the book, but if it's too time consuming watch the film Shooting Dogs in stead. It's like a punch in the gut, but still highly recommendable.

I wanted to write about the question of the alleged Turkish genocide on the Armenians and its very real consequences for people today, but that will have to wait for my next post. The pub is calling, Sunday night is soccer night..

Crash and Burn

Ouch, seems my guess that Fred Thompson will become the next American President was a bad one. He had a relatively poor showing in his first debate, appearing at times confused and completely witout energy.

His campaign is also generally off to a slow start. He has cancelled a bunch of appearances and his advisors are struggling to get him more active. He's been bleeding badly in the polls and seems to be fading away.


So maybe there's hope for Hillary after all! Or was it Obama I wanted...?

Pretty cool

Check this out.

I'm number 58,310,476!

This is pretty fascinating. If you know your annual salary the site will calculate your position in the "Global Rich List" and what percentage of the total that means you belong to.

I'm in the freakin top 0,97%!!! I should go out celebrate, 'cause that's without any sort of bonuses, extra time or freelance work.

Or should I sit down and cry 'cause the world is just so unfair?

Proud Highlight

I thought I'd share the highlight of my day with you. It's probably the highlight of a lot more than just the day, but let's not get into that.

The highlight of my day has been receiving a mail from my younger brother Erik who is currently studying at Birzeit University, Ramallah.

While I have basically stayed at at home Erik is quite good at living his life the way one should; as an ongoing journey, both metaphorically and literally. Next stop for him (much to our mothers dismay, though she is just as proud of him as I am) is Sudan where he'll go after christmas.

What makes me proud is not only how he carries himself through life, it is also the things he is able to accomplish along the road. He wrote a very interesting bachelor thesis on Hizbullah (development studies) this spring and today he got published in the Norwegian weekly news magazine New Time .

You can find his essay printed on page 30-31, and in both an English and a Norwegian pdf version for downloading if you scroll to the bottom of this site.

He writes about what courage is in a way that makes his older brother profoundly proud to be just that.

(PS his bachelor thesis is available online through this site. A bit different from the ones you normally browse. You find it if you scroll down, under related documents)

Facebook

Some of the reasons I'm not on facebook. I just don't want to be part of it..

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. I'm all good.

Borat and Paris come together

When not appearing on the Norwegian edition of Dancing with the Stars, the Norwegian version of Paris Hilton, Pia Haraldsen, works for the Norwegian comedy show Voice of the Nation. She fills the role as Political Editor for the show, and her naive style can easily remind you of Borat.

So far she has not been making headlines outside of Norway, but this interview with the Republican New York City Councilman James Oddo has gotten the attention of Fox, among others:

Who is more funny? And who takes it too far? You tell me...

Are you laughing?

Observing the application process for the soon-to-be-vacant position as leader of the free world might make you laugh. Particularly in times like this when laughing is such a serious matter…

Hillary Clintons laughter is making headlines and spurring debate across the web. Is it real, is it fake, does it make her more or less likeable? You tell me..



Either way, the whole process of electing the most powerful man, er person, in the world fascinates me.

So far Mrs. Clinton is looking good, along with Americas Mayor Rudy Giuliani. But my guess is that neither of them will make it in the long run. None of them are really electable at the end/beginning of the day.

Personally, I do not think that America is ready for a female president. Bearing in mind how long and dirty this campaign will get, Clinton seems to be vulnerable on to many issues merely because she is a woman and because she is as controversial as she is. I think she will be successful in securing the candidacy on behalf of the Democratic party, but at the end of the day she is a divisive figure for America. I can think of several Republican candidates who could beat her.

Rudy Giuliani is one of them. Today he is the frontrunner in the republican race, and if elected as republican candidate I think he would stand a good chance of winning the whole schabaam. But for the same reasons I think he would beat Clinton or most other democratic candidates, I think he will not win the candidacy of the Republican Party: He is too liberal! He’s been divorced a number of times, is pro-choice and has even been a democrat.. Thus, at the beginning of the day, he is not electable.

So who is my guess? If he does well in his first debate and manages to get his fundraising campaign off the ground I think Fred Thompson is the man. Folksy, confident and eloquent, I think he has what it takes to be elected.

But do we really want him? Hell no… We want Obama. Right?