In August 2002, a huge sign was unveiled at Ground Zero
in memorial of the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The
sign noted that "September 11, 2002, was a pivotal day..." The punchline? Nobody discovered and informed about
the error for almost two years!
Id Software's first person shooter Doom 3 will be in US stores August 3, a couple of weeks later in Europe.
I have no idea why I am so excited. I will need to get a new PC to even start the game.
Flashback: I loved the original Doom series (I, II and Ultimate) as well as
all the Quake games (still play them all occasionally). I particularly
remember a huge custom made level called Hotel California made by some fan,
set to the soundtrack of course. It set you (well, me) up against
enormous hordes of imps and other monsters, armed with the good ol' shotgun. Shoot and
strafe, shoot and strafe with the music at full volume. Ah, the happy
days of mindless slaughter.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has again declared Norway the world's best country to live in,
and the Norwegian media are in its usual self-congratulary mood.
Sweden, Australia and Canada followed, while the US fell to the 8th
place (Canadians are crowing; they
were beaten by their southern neighbours last year). I doubt there are
significant differences between most western nations, but the reason
Norway is ahead is probably our oil wealth.
Norway's gross national product per person amounted to USD 36,600, beaten only by Luxembourg.
I do suspect, however, that a lot of the criteria used is not as
clearly calculated as the GDP. And one could be tempted to suspect a
bit of tweaking favouring whatever criteria the UNDP considers
important for human welfare, on which others may differ.
Researchers for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) also
weighed countries' degrees of cultural freedom in their analysis. They
called cultural freedom a "basic human right," and awarded high scores
in this year's UN Human Development Report to countries that accept
immigrant cultures in addition to their own.
Norway's cultural diversity has blossomed in recent years, and public
policies are aimed at integrating various ethnic groups and promoting
tolerance.
I
would think the goals of "cultural freedom" and "integration" were
slightly conflicting. And I have to say my bullshit filter alarm bells
chimed a lot reading the very politically correct intro for this report.
Well, bloggers who try to make links to non-disappearing stories know that only too well.
3:10:43 AM comment []trackback []
How to spell obsession
So who do you think is the most important person in Norway, measured by
the number of times he or she was mentioned in our media over the last six months?
The king maybe? Not even close. One of our sports heroes or a pop star? Nope. The
prime minister? He was a distant #2 with 9,713 references.
No, the most important person in the Norwegian media, mentioned a
whooping 15,269 times in tiny Norway, was President George W. Bush.
The survey does not tell how many times Bush was mentioned favourably, but I think you can count them on one amputated hand.
The big news to our media was not their obsession with a foreign
leader, but that Carl I. Hagen, the leader of the populist Progress
Party, has declined from 4th to 20th on this list, but he's working hard to change that as we speak.
