Month: April 2016

  • The test

    I hear on the news that Edward Snowden is taking my country to court, or rather, he is asking the judiciary of my country to consider what his rights would be as a visitor to Norway. I find the question fair and timely. Much as I keep insisting that the rule of law is, by…

  • Word of warning

    I put to you – though of course you are entitled to disagree with me – that a successful democracy is contingent on an informed and responsible electorate. Mind you, democracies being what they are, the electorate rules (though parenthetically, of course, the market also has a slight say in the matter; in most matters,…

  • Even in Israel

    I would like to stress that only 57 percent of the respondents of an Israeli survey found that it was OK to shoot and kill an incapacitated Palestinian lying on the ground. The other 43 per cent found that it was not OK at all, and that the soldier who did the killing, the executing,…

  • Vårnatt på stølen

    Som artsnavnet mitt nok tilsier, trives jeg best i sjø. Men sjøen er ikke hva den var. Den er full av plastikk og tungmetaller, og langs den norske kysten, som før var så idyllisk, hviner hurtiggående privatbåter som mygger til sent på kveld. Så jeg har trukket opp en av de store elvene og funnet…

  • Yippee

    I knew, of course, that this is done, and I knew, roughly, how; how some of the rich and powerful, as opposed to most of us, manage to pay little or no taxes. (Hear for instance BBC’s “file on 4”, “Dirty Money UK” of 11 October 2015). The problem is that more often than not,…