Showing posts with label Norway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Norway. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Nima Sanandaji, Debunking Utopia

What a timely book.

Bernie Sanders supporters said they were looking at "Scandinavia," thinking "that's where we [America] ought to be going..."

But see Nima Sanandaji's new book, Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism.

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Norway Turns Against Statoil

It's the state oil company, which generates about a quarter of national income.

Still, the far-left Norwegian population has turned against the company. You know, it's all about the environment to leftists. Too bad we can't ship all of ours to Scandinavia.

At the New York Times, "Norwegians Turn Ambivalent on Statoil, Their Economic Bedrock":
OSLO — This has not been a particularly good year for Statoil, the huge state-controlled oil company that has had a commanding presence in Norway’s economy and society for more than four decades.

In the spring, Statoil cut 1,000 jobs, or 4 percent of its work force. In September, it postponed a much-criticized project in the Canadian tar sands for at least three years. On Oct. 29, reflecting collapsing oil prices and a steep tumble of its stock, it reported its first quarterly loss since 2001. And in November, it announced disappointing results from the year’s program of drilling for new oil and gas in the Norwegian Arctic.

But it is not just the vicissitudes of oil markets and exploratory wells that are causing difficulties for Statoil. In an era of climate change, the company — and by extension Norway’s entire oil and gas industry, which accounts for nearly a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions worldwide — is coming under increasing pressure from within its own borders.

The activism goes beyond conventional environmental concerns to issues of the company’s pervasive presence in Norwegian life.

At the University of Bergen and other schools, for instance, professors and students have protested Statoil’s financing of academic research, worth about $12 million annually. And musicians and artists have campaigned against the company’s widespread sponsorship of cultural events and organizations, which has included cash awards to performers whom Statoil calls “Heroes of Tomorrow.”

“Basically, you’re a billboard for an oil company,” Martin Hagfors, a musician, said in an interview in his studio in Oslo’s lively Gronland district. “And if you have any sense that we need to change direction, you can’t be a billboard for an oil company.”

The tensions are playing out in Parliament, too. In June, majority and opposition parties pressured Statoil to agree to provide electricity to several North Sea oil fields from land, using clean hydroelectricity delivered by cable rather than greenhouse-gas-emitting gas generators offshore.

“There’s a growing concern that Norway is basing its welfare to such a large extent on something that is increasing global warming,” said Rasmus Hansson, who last year became the first member of the Green Party to be elected to Parliament. “It’s a moral issue.”

Statoil, which was concerned about costs and delays, fought back, and a compromise was eventually reached that will cut emissions by up to 23 million tons of carbon dioxide over the lifetime of the fields. The episode was seen as a milestone for Parliament, which normally rubber-stamps most Statoil projects.

“It was a very important thing to do at the time we did it,” said Terje Aasland, a member of Parliament with the Labor Party, the largest opposition party.

“Climate change is coming closer and closer every day,” he added. “I think people are more concerned about the future.”
A bunch of blithering idiots. The climate change consensus has completely collapsed, but these Norwegian socialists are still lapping up the global warming Kool-Aid.

It's not going to be good for the country's long-term prosperity, but leftists never learn.

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Mass Islamic Immigration Has Turned #Sweden Into the Rape Capital of Europe

Well, here's more on the Utopian Scandinavian welfare states, this time Sweden.

From Pat Condell:



Remember, in Sweden, "Freedom Equals Racism." Where have I heard that before?

Oh, and don't forget this:
Leftism is a disease. Racist, imperialist, and fundamentally evil. As much as I admire the Scandinavian countries, stories like this remind us always --- always --- that nothing impedes human improvement like the statist abomination of far-left leftist regressivism.


Friday, May 23, 2014

Socially 'Progressive' Norway Brings Back Racist 'Human Zoos'

Norway is the model country for social progressivism, which of course explains why folks there are bringing back the racist Kongoslandsbyen ("Congo Village"), apparently to widespread enthusiasm.

At Global Post, "Norway reopens racist 'human zoo' to remind people about racism":

 photo Jubileumsutstillingen_1914_OBNW3010_zps706a50de.jpg
Two artists have recreated a “human zoo” in Oslo, just in time for the 200th anniversary of Norway’s constitution. The project is modeled after an actual historical event — a really, really racist one — and not surprisingly, it’s generated a lot of controversy.

The “Congo Village,” or Kongoslandsbyen, was a fake tribal village built in Frogner Park for the 1914 Oslo World Fair. Visitors could pay to gawk at 80 African men, women and children — apparently Congolese — living in thatched huts, wearing traditional garments and doing “indigenous” things.

In just five months it attracted 1.4 million visitors, or roughly half the population of Norway. A newspaper at the time described it as “exceedingly funny” while another enthused, “it’s wonderful that we are white!”

Today a “human zoo” is nearly unthinkable. Which is exactly why Norwegian-Sudanese artist Mohamed Ali Fadlabi and Swedish-Canadian artist Lars Cuznor decided to rebuild one. To their surprise, very few Norwegians seemed to know about this aspect of Norway’s history.

Cuznor and Fadlabi felt that rebuilding the Congo Village was a way to spark discussion about colonialism, racism and equality in Norway. They secured co-funding from the Norwegian government and recruited international volunteers (of all races) to perform in the fake village.

The resulting display, called “European Attraction Limited,” is meant to challenge Nordic beliefs of moral superiority by confronting visitors with evidence of Norway’s racist past.

“Norwegians have been propagating this self-image of a post-racial society and it's been internalized that it's a good, tolerant society,” Cuznor told Reuters. “It's great branding and it’s self-perpetuating but it's a false image.”

But not everyone’s a fan. As Ugandan academic Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire wrote for The Guardian, “human zoos” were common in Belgium, Germany, France and the United States and depicted Africans (and other non-western peoples) as “uncivilised, primitive and animistic.” This helped justify colonial policies while providing Europeans with crude entertainment.

Bwa Mwesigire adds, “We are not in a post-racial world. Fadlabi and Cuzner can’t exonerate themselves because they mean well. Indeed, if they are serious about creating discussions of racism they ought to think deeper about the likelihood that their project may entrench the same prejudices they claim to fight.”

And Muauke B. Munfocol, a DRC-born Norwegian, questions the decision of the Norwegian government to sponsor a human zoo, rather than put its money toward more constructive forms of dialogue...
Right.

Human zoos were common 100 years ago, but for some reason the socialist paradise Norway decides to bring them back? So hateful. So typically regressive.

Leftism is a disease. Racist, imperialist, and fundamentally evil. As much as I admire the Scandinavian countries, stories like this remind us always --- always --- that nothing impedes human improvement like the statist abomination of far-left leftist regressivism.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg Works the Oslo Taxicabs

Interesting.

We'd never see Barack Hussein behind the wheel of a cab. Seriously, too dangerous. No doubt some mf's would love to take him out, the prick.

At the Independent UK, "You’ll never guess who I had in the front of my cab... the Norwegian PM":


It is often said that you can learn the most about a place by chatting to its taxi drivers.

But Norway’s Prime Minister decided to try it the other way round, using an afternoon spent in disguise ferrying Oslo residents around the city to get a glimpse into voters’ concerns as elections approach.

Donning a pair of sunglasses and ditching his customary sharp suit for a cardigan and red tie, Jens Stoltenberg appears successfully to have hoodwinked a number of residents into revealing their thoughts ahead of elections on 9 September.

Their views will be much appreciated: current opinion polls suggest Mr Stoltenberg will be defeated by the Conservative Party, ending eight years of a Labour government.
Continue reading.