Democracy FAIL: mexican flu vaccination

There's a famous quote by President Thomas Jefferson that goes approximately like this: "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government." President Jefferson, by the way, was the guy that more or less drafted the Declaration of Independence, and a vocal spokesperson for human rights in a time when slavery was the norm.

With how the mexican flu vaccine fiesta has played out in Norway, I'm on board with Jefferson's statement. 'Cause so far, the story has played out something like this:

1. Flu strand is discovered and identified as potential pandemic, being that it's essentially the mutated bird flu version 2.0. Lots of "We're all gonna die of the mexican flu" headlines and general uproar.
2. The mexican flu is identified as mostly resulting in mild influenza symtoms. According to media, we're still all gonna die from this pandemic.
3. The Norwegian government buys vaccines to the tune of more than two inoculations per citizen. All of a sudden the media outlets are filled with angry citizens decrying the government for spending money on vaccines against what's essentially a mild flu anyways. Surely we could use the tax money better, like lowering prices on gasoline and alcohol or improving the roads. And won't somebody please think of the CHILDREN. To the surprise on noone, a veritable line-up of losers gets free media time by claiming that a) vaccines in general are dangerous and will kill you and b) this vaccine in particular will kill you like you won't believe it. Citizens are enraged.
4. The first mexican flu casualties start to occur in Norway. Death tolls are all over the media. Mob mood shifts. All of a sudden, it's "When can we get the vaccine"?
5. Vaccines start to arrive, and the high-risk population starts to get inoculations. Death count now reaches into the double digits. Citizens are absolutely in a frenzy - we have a right to be vaccinated, don't you realize that this is a pandemic? The government has a responsibility to secure its population from dangerous disease, and won't SOMEBODY think of the children.
6. The manufacturer screws up an entire batch meant for Norway, and vaccination of the general population is delayed. Citizens start to threat their GPs physically and stating that "If I don't get the vaccine and I die from the mexican flu - you and the government is to blame". Media is still completely saturated with mexican flu stories.
7. Mass vaccination is initiated. In our municipality, only a handful of people bothered to show up. The media picture is supersaturated with "OHMIGAWD; Obama is gonna be in Norway for two and a half hours next week."

To end with another Jefferson quote: "The best argument against democracy is spending five minutes with the average voter"

No bully-register?

Lately, there's been a lot of fuss about the campaign "Stopp Mobbingen" (Stop the Bullying) which has assembled a register of schools where serious bullying occurs more frequently than what's to be expected. This weekend, VG reported that two "high-ranking politicians" demand that this register should be removed. Arguments ensue.

Who are these "high-level politicians", one might ask. Why, it's the Patron Saint of Mediocrity, Trine Skei Grande (Venstre), and the Crown Princess of Unsubstantiated Media Hype, Hadia Tajik (Arbeiderpartiet). Skei Grande is of course the second-in-command and presumed leader-elect of Venstre, which in and of itself should give some pause for Venstre-voters, considering that Skei Grande couldn't win a debate if she was the only participant, and that in the same contest, the lectern would be voted "Most Charismatic Participant". Talk about contrast in leadership change if she takes over after Lars Sponheim. Hadia Tajik is a political advisor rumored to be behind such wildly successful proposals as hijab in the Norwegian police force, and she was also one of the most visible proponents of the epitome of lameness campaign slogan in "Jens vi kæn", not at all a weak attempt to piggyback on a very successful slogan recently employed in international politics.. Both of these "high-level politicians" decry the campaign and their register, and offer instead their own solutions to the very real problem of bullying. Both are also very visible in media - in the case of Tajik, she's been very adept at getting face time in media ever since she got into national politics, whereas Skei Grande obviously has started to take the advice of a media consultant.

Skei Grande vehemently states that bullying cannot be stopped by blacklisting schools where bullying is a disproportionate problem compared to the mean. Rather, she wants to allocate resources towards reinstating the respect for teachers in the classroom. On the vagueness scale, this ranks right up there with her brilliant file-sharing proposal, where she suggests that somebody somehow should find alterantive revenue streams for musicians etc. to make money without limiting filesharing.

Brilliant. I'm sure the red-headed kid with the freckles and daily trips face-first into the toilet takes great comfort in this.

Tajik states that the bully-register has no constructive effect, and that concrete proposals and strategies are missing. According to her, bullying can be stopped by other means entirely. For example, the government will present a new, holistic approach to learning environment before Christmas. They also want to strengthen the victimization-sensitivity training among teachers and principals. But wait - there's more: The coalition government also want to allocate more funds to attitude campaigns in the schools.

Again, I'm sure that li'l Per is better able to hold on to his moral while on the receiving end of wedgies and beatings when he knows that the government is thinking about putting down a committee to investigate the problem and possibly allocate funds towards a future campaign no doubt featuring children of all colors rapping about how bullying is whack, yo.

These lame-ass attempts to make political hay of a very real (to the children involved) problem by launching some vague, non-committal nonsense that they never have to be held to is very low - even for beta politicians like Skei Grande and Tajik.

As far as I can tell, the register in question only lists schools where the bullying has been so severe as to necessitate students to change schools despite attempts from parents to enter a constructive dialogue with the school in question. Seeing as how the register doesn't even begin to list the majority of schools, we're talking about schools where bullying is a much greater problem than the norm. Isn't this information valuable in and of itself? Unless you're gonna claim that the students at these schools are more evil or more prone to bullying than other students, there is a need to realize that the problems are disproportionally present in some schools. And thus a general solution encompassing all schools nationwide probably won't do much. While I don't think the teachers and principals at these schools should be put in the pillory of constant media attention, I also don't think that they deserve a medal for either not being aware of the situation or not doing enough to fix the problem. Ducking responsibility is a poor trait in educators.

Epic Arnold ownage of political opponent

The above is a letter from Governor Schwarzenegger to a local Democrat explaining why he refuses to sign a bill into law.

Hint: Read the first letter of every line in the two major paragraphs. You'll find that two words are spelled out.

I have no idea what the bill was all about and thus whether the Governator made a prudent decision, but damn was that ever funny.

Sic transit gloria mundi

Like 'Cube says, it was a good day. Got a good nights sleep, got to work early, got started on preparing new course in applied nanotech. A paper is gonna get submitted to a very good journal today.

Then some kind of clusterf*ck happened.

We're probably not gonna get a new kitchen installed until over New Year's. I was supposed to have a phoner with a prospective grad student, but I never got anything but his voice mail. And the crowning achievement of the day - the Department Head sent me an email informing me that he'd volunteered me as the department's ombud for equal status/equal rights representative at the faculty.

I am now the Crown Prince of Political Correctness and Grand Wizard of Soul-Draining Meetings.

I sense some serious sucktual overtones happening here.

To quote Linda Eide in the last episode of Norske Attraksjoner - "Negative tankar"

If this sucks even half as much as I think it does, I'm going to seriously contemplate my chosen profession.

That was fast

In the new proposed national budget, the gov't wants to introduce a value-added tax to biodiesel and LPG, i.e., gaseous fuel for motor vehicles. The reason is apparently that the majority of costs associated with personal motor vehicles are associated with accidents, heavy traffic/gridlocks and noise, none of which vary significantly with the fuel source. Thus there is no reason for tax rebates for certain types of fuel.

Brilliant, says I. There is only one singular explanation for this proposal that doesn't bring into play a linear combination of zero eco-cred among the government parties, epic broken promises during the election campaign and several people in key positions not taking their medication. Namely that the pesky problem with CO2 emissions and that whole man-made climate changes-dealie has been called off.

Otherwise, how in the blue hell do they plan to motivate people to purchase more eco-friendly cars when they refuse to lower the taxes for hybrid cars significantly and the fuel for the more expensive cars they're supposed to buy is at least as expensive?

So; now that the red-green coalition has eliminated climate changes, what's on the agenda for next week? End world hunger? Rename Mondays?

New trend for Nobel Prizes

Some have argued that it's OK to dole out Nobel Peace Prizes based on potential and expressed good intentions. As long as the nominee has promised to get something done, there is all reason to believe that this will in fact happen. Is this trend going to continue into other branches - say into physics and chemistry? Will the prizes be awarded to some grad student based on spectacular performance during doctorate studies as well as the student's promise of more and better results once he or she gets a faculty position?

If potential and media hype was all that was required, how do you explain Marit Bjørgen?

If it is reasonable to assume that what a politician promises during the election campaign will come true once he or she is elected, how do you think SV voters are feeling about Soria Moria II?

Then again, at least they didn't award the Nobel Peace Prize to someone for cutting down on their genocide agenda.

The Nobel Peace Prize 2009... Obama??

Two years ago, there was a bit of a fuzz on m-factor regarding the peace prize being awarded to Al Gore. Well, this year it was awarded to Barack Obama. Now, disregarding the fact that I'm once again ignored by the Nobel Committee: Isn't this a bit too early in his career? The deadline for nomination this year was just a couple of weeks after he was elected president. And, wouldn't it be wise the give it some time, to see whether he actually can but some action behind his plans and promises or if it's just a load of hot air?

I'm amazed by the Committee; are they influenced by all the Obama fan-bois out there and the positive media coverage? If they wanted to use the price in an active way to promote peace work, there are some many other candidates they could have choosen.

So, what do the rest of the poeple here at the A-factor blog thinks?

Sins of omission

After watching the NrK debate on environmental issues today, I'm left with the sense that none of the participants even come close to being honest about the issues at hand. The energy sources discussed are on one hand oil and gas that we strive to phase out, and on the other hand the so-called renewable energy sources we need to develop and phase in. In this election, three forms of "alternative" energy sources have been mentioned (with the exception of FrP and their penchant for hydroelectricity) - solar power, wind power and biofuel. I'm all about solar- and wind power, but the problem is that none of these power sources are practical for transportation - with the exception of trains and subways. There's a missing link between solar/wind power and transportation: battery technology. If you think you can power a truck or a plane using either of these technologies via the battery technology which exists or which lies around the corner, I've got a cathedral here in Trondheim I'm offering up for sale.

The transportation problem is one of the main reasons why the financial crisis and subsequent fuel price were blessings in disguise. If the US reduces their consumption of fossile fuel for transportation purposes (i.e.; deep-six Hummers in favor of smaller and hopefully more environmentally friendly vehicles), it goes a long way towards reducing CO2 emissions. President Obama actually comes across as having credibility on this issue.

The only "alternative" energy source which currently can power the transportation sector is biofuel, which ironically is the biggest detour of alternative energy. First of all, it's not that efficient compared to fossile fuel. Second, it creates a massive industry, pressure groups and government pork barrels for what is at best transitional technology. As such, it diverts hard-needed funding from research on energy sources which can actually make a difference. Third, growing crops for purposes of fuel means less crops for consumption, and last time I checked, the ratio of population growth to food production was not favorable.

Fourth and final, one of the primary producers of biofuel is - and will be - the third-world semi-dictatorship known as Brazil. Brazil does one thing well - apart from keeping the vast majority of its population way below the poverty limit despite having a fast-growing economy - destroying the rain forest. Whether it's for purposes of cattle grazing, oil-field development or for biofuel crops, the sub-mexicans of Brazil have proven not to give a damn about any deleterious effects on the environment. Seeing as how the rain forest contains a whole lot of - well - trees and trees do an awfully good job of absorbing CO2, this would be nothing short of disastrous.

In my admittedly not so humble opinion, none of the political parties featured in debates prior to the election have a realistic view of alternative energy. One might actually argue that FrP is the most honest party out there, as they're the only ones to state that they don't believe in any climate changes and thus don't see a problem with upholding or even increasing the energy consumption.

School politics according to me - part 4

Sponsored lunch
On papyrus, it's a good idea that all the students get a "free lunch" (financed via tax money anyways) so as to provide them with the nutrition to stay focused during the day and to bypass any inequalities as far as parent income and dietary awareness. This would ensure that the kids get at least one balanced meal during the day, right?

Sure...if you trust the government to actually provide a nutritionally sound diet. If we look to countries like Great Britain where school lunches are implemented and take a look at what menus are available, it's a lot of sausages, chicken nuggets and other "foods" which are nothing but industrial byproducts with some preservatives and coloring added. Bottom line: I wouldn't trust such a system to provide adequate nutrition, and for sure we can provide our kid with a better packed lunch than that. I've often said that the best way to get rid of industrial waste is to put a little bit of it into food products and have people eat it. The difference is that I'm joking.

Public disclosure of national tests and ranking of schools
Absolutely - where do I sign up? I've never seen any logical argument against either of these. Starting with public disclosure of national tests, which are often presented as organized bullying of school districts who don't do well. I strongly disagree - this would offer distinct advantages both to the "customer", i.e., the population, and the "seller", i.e., the school districts. The benefit to the "customer" is obvious; if you've the choice of sending your children to one out of two schools in the area, you obviously want to know which provides the best education. If your family relocates to another area and you're looking for housing in a region spanning several school districts, you also want to take into consideration the quality of the schools nearby. Public disclosure of national tests is one way of accomplishing this.

In case of the school districts, every argument against public disclosure I've heard basically boils down to "Well, if a school district gets a bad rating, feelings are gonna be hurt". So?

If a school scores significantly below average - what are the possible reasons? For the sake of simplicity, we can limit the discussion to schools outside of the Oslo area, so as to eliminate any just or unjust focus on cultural issues. The variables are 1) students, 2) teachers and 3) economy. Out of these, only two are valid, because if you think that some schools score lower because they've got bad students, then odds are that you think phrenology and physiognomy are branches of science and good indicators of intelligence. So; if the bad scores can be attributed to either insufficient budgets or incompetent/lacking teaching staff (or most likely a linear combination of the two), that's good news in that it can be remedied. However, you can't solve a problem unless you put focus on it. In the case of an insufficient budget, this needs to be pointed out if anything's to be done about it. Is the municipality flat out broke or didn't get enough ear-marked money from the national government? Here are the numbers to prove it, now hook us up with some chedda'. The municipality prioritized building a new city hall instead of hiring more teachers? Heads are gonna roll and changes can be implemented.

What if the problem is an incompetent teaching staff? Well; if the results of national tests are not disclosed and nobody knows that the other schools in the district score twice as high in almost every subject, what possible incentive do the teachers have to improve? Am I to believe that the same teachers who sucked at their job to begin with are spontaneously going to get their act together unless acted upon by an outside force? Never gonna happen. You don't need to take my word for it though - the second law of thermodynamics also says so.

On to school ranking. What would be wrong with establishing some high schools for exceptionally good students? For lower year-studies the students still live at home, but it's not at all uncommon to move out in order to go to high school. Same with universities; why can't we have a ranking that's tied up to entrance requirements?

Here's where all kinds of egalitarian, social democracy nonsense usually sets in, despite the fact that this exact system is implemented in many countries we'd very much like to compare ourselves to when it comes to academics. Also, my main issue with this pseudo-egalitarian approach is that it resides somewhere between selectiveness and epic hypocrisy. The thing is; when it comes to sports, there are no such limitations - behold the completely legitimate institutions known as "toppidrettsgymnas" (elite athletic high school), with stringent entrance exams. Also, kids are separated into scrub and varsity teams in pretty much every sport from an early age. Apparently this has nothing to do with discrimination and "sorteringssamfunn", but follows the simple rule that some people are better at something. But for some reason this does not hold true in academia. Unless someone can prove that everyone holds the same academic potential, this is brutal hypocrisy.

Alright - enough.

School politics according to me - part 3

Private schools
I've got some reservations about this subject. First of all, I think it's great that the option of sending your kid to a private school exists if the local public school is unable to provide your kid with an adequate education. Then again I think the tax money should be spent where it can do the most good, and being that the number of students in public schools vastly exceeds that of the private institutions, that's a no-brainer for me. Letting the funding follow each and every student appears to me like an exceptionally stupid idea which will only exclude any kind of long-term planning and investments for the schools, as well as make it close to impossible to execute any budget control beyond the current semester or school year.

The main source of my reservations stems from the vague criteria which must be fulfilled, in that the private school to be must offer an alternative pedagogical approach or be based on religious belief. Neither criterion does anything to enable exertion of quality control, which must be the primary focus. Moreover, I'm not particularly keen on using tax money to fund some glorified indoctrination institutions run by the Church of the Mothership behind the Comet or some other fear-monger cult. I'm also not in favor of offering up tax money just because someone offers an "alternative pedagogic approach". If you want to dance the alphabet and claim to be able to analyze someone's personality solely by their looks, fine. Just fund the bongs, drums and absinth out of your own pocket.

Grades
Should grades be implemented in the elementary school? I don't really have an opinion of that, despite the frequent appearance of this very question in media recently. What I do have a strong opinion on, however, is the need for a universal evaluation system. Right now, grades are still where it's at. Sure, grades as a system has its flaws, but it works insofar as providing a universal platform for ranking of students, which is absolutely necessary in order to evaluate performance. What really irks me is when some pressure groups try to make political hay by claiming that we should abandon grades in favor of "alternative evaluation systems", yet never seem to suggest or substantiate any such thing. They might as well suggest that we try "something else". Until a new evaluation system has been run in parallel with the current on a statistically significant population over a prolonged period of time and has proven to outperform the existing paradigm, such a suggestion is logically flawed. If you don't at least provide a definite alternative to the existing system, yet keep whining about it, what you need to do is know your role and STFU.

The most egregious example of total logic disconnect I have had the misfortune of witnessing on this topic came courtesy of my mandatory pedagogic training. During one assembly on alternative evaluation forms, one participant from the medical faculty was strongly advocating abandoning grades in favor of a Pass/Fail system. According to him, their experience indicated that there was no need for grading medical students beyond that, and so the grading should be abolished in favor of the binary Pass/Fail. One other participant asked how the MD would rank applicants to a position based on "his" system, and he hemmed and hawed his way to explaining that such a selection would have to be done based on the interview. The other participant pressed on, asking how he'd go through with this considering the very realistic scenario of 50+ applicants for said position. Before Dr. Douchebag, M.D. could answer, I chimed in and asked him what criteria are applied for selecting students to medical school. "Uhhhh..grades, but.." I interrupted again to ask if he expected us to take him seriously when his faculty had already used grades exclusively for pre-screening the students, accepting only - one assumes - the cream of the crop? ...and he actually shut up, but he probably clasped his squash racket extra hard later that afternoon, cursing "those damn scientists with their logic and their math".

Yet another wall of text, so more to come

School politics according to me - part 2

Here's the second part of my current views on school politics. They are not permanent in any way, as I am susceptible to persuasion by facts and logic.

Teacher competence
There's no denying that a depressingly high fraction of teachers are not competent. While providing schools with training budgets for their staff can remedy part of this problem, the basic issue is that the shortage of teachers a while back led to schools accepting teacher students who'd failed basic high school math and other subjects. Worse still, some of the students who'd failed math now teach that very same subject despite being unqualified. Something which ought to be painfully obvious, is that you need to have mastered the subject you teach, at the level you're teaching. No wonder children perceive math as difficult and non-intuitive.

In my limited understanding of how this came to be, it started as a shortage of teachers, during which period the teacher academies accepted pretty much any applicants, irrespective of whether or not they were qualified. Following this, the situation was that a shortage of teachers still existed, but that the schools did not have the necessary budget to hire permanent staff. Hence, many schools depended heavily on temps (not part of the permanent budget), which isn't exactly ideal from the students' point of view, in that there is no stable situation. It ain't exactly the kind of situation which favors optimal quality of teaching either, as temps - knowing full and well that the odds of being hired permanently are abysmally low - had no incentive for going above and beyond and laying down maximum effort.

So what to do about this? One obvious step is to implement minimum criteria for being accepted into teaching academies. Another step is to lose the temps (if that's still relevant) and go for hiring of permanent staffers. A training budget for further education of teachers is also a must, something a lot of politicians appear to be talking about these days. For me, increasing teacher salary beyond its current level doesn't really make sense. Last time I checked those numbers, high school teachers can make more money that Associate Professors, while working less. There are probably teachers out there who claim to be underpaid and overworked, all of whom I'd be happy to compare workloads with. Also, in my experience, there's a very high percentage of local politicians who are also teachers, compared to other professions, which doesn't seem to go with the claim of having a much higher workload than said other professions.

Funding structure
Should schools be funded via national or local budgets? There are some very persuasive arguments to be made for school budgets being run across municipal budgets, most of which deal with flexibility and a closer proximity between decisionmakers and the issues to be dealt with. On papyrus it's a great idea to let the municipalities distribute the budgets as they please.

On the other hand, there's a saying that a small town with lots of money is like a donkey with a wristwatch. Nobody knows how it got it, and damn if it knows how to use it. Every argument that can be made in favor of increased local budget control can be countered with three little words: "The Terra Municipalities" Come to think of it, Trondheim is another example of why increased local control is a really bad idea: Trondheim sold it's power plant to private enterprises with a hyooge profit, which was not distributed or invested locally to stimulate the Trondheim area, but - wait for it - invested in all kinds of stocks and bonds in order to maximize profit fast. Enter the global financial crisis, and Trondheim went from a wealthy municipality/city to being three taxpayers away from having to sell Nidarosdomen to a Saudi Arabian amusement park.

Ironically, the brilliant architects behind this sale were the usually fiscally responsible conservatives in Høyre. Kudos on a job well done, and for demonstrating that municipalities from what I've seen either don't have robust eough economies or don't have the know-how to manage their finances. Clearly, municipalities cannot be trusted to distribute their funding according to what's best for common goods like education. Thus I am in favor of having school funding regulated by the national government.

Another wall of text. More to come.

School politics according to me - part 1

Some time this Spring I predicted that school politics would become really important in the upcoming election. Or rather, that it would be important enough to warrant debates on the topic beyond the usual glossing over and subsequent backhanded dismissal like what's typically done with topics like science and research: everyone agrees that it's important, but none can seem to substantiate any plan whatsoever beyond cheap catchphrases often including words like "change".

I'm lookin' like freakin' Nostradamus up in here Far be it from me to gloat, but it appears that I have been moderately successful in my predictions this time.

There are several reasons why I think education is important not just in and of itself, but also with respect to what political party gets my vote. Some of the reasons are tied in with parenthood and the fact that I want Viktor to get a good education within our school system. I don't want him to feel bored or left behind in a school system which at times appears to be little more than a storage facility for children and adolescents. Another reason is that being an academic staff member at a university, the level at which we can teach and thus the threshold level of knowledge we can impart on the students is limited by the baggage they bring with them from high school and earlier. We only have so much time with the students, and there is a definite limit to how steep the learning curve can get. Students entering universities with severe deficiencies in math, for example, is a serious problem. Moreover, if universities and university colleges are to adjust their levels according to lower levels of education, it's a brutal case of the tail wagging the dog. After all, degrees earned at our institutions of higher learning must comply with or ideally exceed international standards. Thus, it makes sense that the academic branches of the educational system work to prepare students for universities and university colleges. The converse does not make any sense.

However, this does not in any way, shape or form mean that I'm considering the worth of the educational system based on its ability to prepare students for university studies. Far from it. If anything, the current system puts too much emphasis on academics, which is manifested in the way trade school students are being forced to take a number of courses with the sole purpose of qualifying them for university acceptance - a low-budget version of the GED. Not only are trade school students forced to take the "academic route" courses, but their studies are also prolonged because of them. And lo and behold, trade school students are much more likely to drop out of school than their academic counterparts. Might that be because the system pulled a bait-and-switch on them? Maybe they don't see the relevance of adding such subjects as poetry analysis to their curriculum, and don't appreciate that these courses extend the duration of their education by 50% without them learning anymore of their desired trade.

Unless there's a huge influx of carpenters wanting to take a Master's degree in Nordic languages that I haven't heard anything about, I think it would be prudent to stop treating trade school and equivalents as the red-headed stepchild of the educational system. The country needs a whole lot more carpenters and electricians than it needs professors, and that's not an elitist way of thinking at all. Not all people are good at or interested in purely academic subjects, much like not everybody are practically oriented. For sure I'd be fried if I had to do anything with the electrical system myself. If our car breaks down on the highway, popping the hood would be a perfunctory exercise in which I'd only be looking for a giant switch that's dropped to the "off" position. I don't look down on any profession - except for lawyers, car salesweasels, real estate agents and "glamour models" - and I don't see how it's anything but condescending for the department of education to tell trade schools that "yeah; you teaching carpentry, electronics and other things requiring manual labor is all good and well, but in order for your school to qualify as part of the educational system, you need to add some proper subjects, like religion history and the ever-so-useful art of analysing poetry".

Wall of text - more to come.

The upcoming election

Since the election is closing in, I've been looking around on some of the coverage in the media. Especially the "party selection tests" and the statistics offered.

First of, the so-called "party selection tests". Nearly all of the tests force the user to make an opninion about the statement presented, but some have the possibility of grading the importance of each statement, or chose one or several issues close to your heart. My experience is that I seem to get the same party as my top and bottom score on the different tests, but with a large variation of the parties in-between. But then, if you are average interested in news and politics, it's pretty easy to manipulate the test.

However, what I find interesting, is that some of these tests show statistics for all the users who participated. Pretty thin statistics, but still, here are a couple of examples:

First, here's NrKs test. It basically gives you a precentage how how much you agree with each party. Thus, the one with the highets percentage is your (obvious?) choice. They also publish the average score of everybody that has taken this test. The %-score is how much on average the user agrees with the party:

I liked the test, because you were able to rate your answers. But the average of all people who participated, shows some interessting results. I don't know about the varians here, but it seems to me that there are two likely scenarios coming from this graph:

1. Politics in Norway are so similar, that there is little difference between the parties. Hence, everybody agrees with approx. 1/3 or more of any party.

2. The test desgin is faulty, so it doesn't really differentiat between the parties.

VG has a different take on it. The result from this test just give the party best matched with your answers. No percentage or anything about how you match up with the rest. VG has also published results from all participants:

Interesting, it rates FrP at 35%. Though it is possible, I don't think FrP will get 35% of the votes this election. But what's more unlikely, is Ap to get a mere 16.5%. Which is interesting. So either the people who take this test is bias and/or the design of the test is faulty. If not, people don't know what the parties they vote for actually stand for. However, I'm leaning towards a faulty design theory. This test is one of the simplest I've seen for this election.

Aftenposten has the best test I've seen so far, but they will not publish their average results untill after the election.

I didn't find any tests on Dagbladet, but they do have some interessting statistics. They have plottet averages of several surveys since May:

This is interesting. Because unlike surveys with "going up 0.004% from last week", this shows the overall trends. And most notable, is a significant increase for FrP, mostly from May to July. And Ap is pretty stable.

Dagbladet also include data from several surveys performed in May. So, for fun, I decieded to calculate averages and uncertainty (at 2SD) and plot. I know this isn't correct, but it's the best I can do with the limited data available.

Now, here are some interesting observations. Ap as very little uncertainty, indicating two things: High precision on the measured data and a loyal group of voters. This is coherent with the time plot from Dagbladet. FrP has a lot of variation. This can be explained with the fact that they are increasing in numbers, as shown in the time plot. Also worth noting, is that we can't say for certain taht Høyre is large then SV.... Though I'd be really surprised if they were equal in size after the election. For Rødt and "Andre", the uncertainty is greater then the measured number. Anyway, the graph is just for fun and the numbers shouldn't be taken too serious.

Have a nice election, and don't forget to vote. Unless you vote for the wrong party, then feel free to stay home.

Filesharing - Trine Skei Grande edition

This week's edition of Morgenbladet includes a letter from Venstre's second-in-command Trine Skei Grande (if that doesn't give you pause to think about Venstre's future when Sponheim retires I don't know what does) about the party's position on filesharing. Basically, they don't want to allocate any resources for battling illegal filesharing, and they certainly don't want to take any steps to limit monitoring of internet traffic. Fair enough - at least she outlines their position. However, she goes on to detail Venstre's "solution" to the problem:

"Venstres alternativ er å utvikle en modell som sørger for at rettighetshaverne får ordentlig betalt, samtidig som fildeling gjøres lovlig og kulturen fortsetter å blomstre. Med andre ord vil vi både utvikle et nytt opphavsrettssystem og alternative kompensasjonssystemer. Gjennom en slik modell kanaliserer vi dagens illegale fildeling inn i legale former, noe som alle vil tjene på. ... (English translation: Venstre's alternative is to develop a model which ensures that the copyright holders are properly paid, while simultaneously legalizing filesharing and making sure that culture will keep fluorishing. In other words we want to develop new copyright legislation and alternative compensation systems. In other words Through this model, we will channel the present illegal filesharing into legal revenue streams, something everyone will benefit from."

What a pile of steaming horseshit.

Or rather; it wouldn't reek of sucktitude if she'd presented an outline for such a model. This is a declaration of vague intentions and nothing less. Unless they can specify or at least outline some of the steps between intention and reality, this is nothing but a pipe dream.

Venstre has zero credibility in this matter until they present something tangible, at which point I'll be absolutely thrilled.

Siv Jensen lacks leadership qualities?

According to Høyre leader Erna Solberg, leader of Fremskrittspartiet Siv Jensen lacks leadership qualities. If there is a person anywhere in the political realms of Norway that should know her role and shut her mouth about who's got alpha characteristics, it's Erna Solberg. Her brilliant strategy of first relegating the post of Prime Minister to a smaller party in a hypothetical coalition four years ago and then completely letting FrP take over Høyre's sedimented spot as the number two political entity in Norway firmly cements Solberg's position as beta or gamma politician.

Moreover, while she herself took the party leader position after one of themost anonymous politicians in the history of the universe, in a party where strong female candidates have been present for quite some time, Siv Jensen rose to power in the most male-dominated party in the parliament, and she did so following perhaps THE most charismatic politician in Norwegian history, Carl Ivar Hagen. Much can be said - and for sure has been - about the political views of Mr. Hagen, noone can deny that he was (and is) a brilliant politician and strategist who managed to take a fringe party to the number two status in Norway. Siv Jensen has actually managed to build the party further.

Cliff notes: Erna Solberg: STFU and step down so that someone competent can take Høyre back to its rightful position.

Jan-Aage Torp, Professional darkener of doorsteps

Pastor Jan-Aage Torp has entered the realms of national politics in a most spectacular manner. Hoping to get enough votes to get a seat on the Norwegian Parliament for his party, "Kristent Samlingsparti" (Coalition of bible-thumping extremist whackjobs), he has emptied a bunch of collection plates and financed an election video. What's the theme of this video, you ask?

Well; Pastor Torp being a literal-translation pentecostal zealot, really only has two possible themes: 1) Gay-bashing, and 2) Right-to-life preaching. He chose the latter. You might call him a great number of things, but at least you can count on his being predictable.

The contents of the video? Body parts, dead fetuses in trach cans, just about every shade of gruesome. Congrats to the Pastor - he's just spent a lot of money to get absolutely no votes outside of the die-hard zealots he already had swinging from his balls.

If the theory is correct that Heaven will be populated by the likes of this character, I strongly suspect that someone made a sign error or screwed up the labels somehow.

The Progress Party and the Culture Council

The Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet) has gotten in some hot water with various novelists and artists due to their culture politics and their recent accusations that the Minister of Culture Trond Giske has appointed nobody outside his circle of friends to the Culture Council (Kulturrådet). An upcoming Anti-Fremskrittspartiet political movement, spearheaded by various culture personalities is accusing Fremskrittspartiet of not playing fair in their election propaganda (duh - as if any party propaganda in the history of the universe was ever neutral and fact-based). Ironically, the latest incident in the culture backlash against Fremskrittspartiet saw author Erik Fosnes Hansen melt down during a radio debate with Fremskrittspartiet's Per Arne Olsen and actually throw pieces of crumpled paper at him. Refusing to apologize, Fosnes Hansen offered the following rationale for his stepping outside the accepted debating practices and resort to tactics favored by elementary school bullies: He deserved it.

So much for Fosnes Hansen being a master debater and wielding the power of language and argumentation. Disregarding for a moment that this political movement is little more than a special interest lobbyist effort (and I do not write this lightly, considering that Fremskrittspartiet's culture politics appears to favor little outside of dansband and soccer), do they really deny that a certain degree of nepotism has occurred in the appointments to the Culture Council? Considering the shallowness of the pool of qualified candidates and the frequent public socialization between Giske and the appointed members, I'd keep my mouth closed. Whether it's deliberate is another question, but sheer statistics suggest that in a small country such as this, it's not possible to avoid.

What's perhaps even more interesting is that this culture mafia is directing their outrage over these accusations exclusively at Fremskrittspartiet. Considering that Venstre's second-in-command Trine Skei Grande has made the same accusations and been even more outspoken by it, that is...

Send them to Africa, dammit

Unless you've lived in a cave, or you don't understand Norwegian or live abroad, you've no doubt been exposed to the Progress Party's (Fremskrittspartiet's) suggestion of shipping all refugees to Africa. Or more specifically; outsourcing all refugee camp services to Africa, where the costs are lower and the Norwegian public doesn't have to look at destitute people from different cultures.

No; it's not a joke - they actually made this very suggestion. Some of the underlying reasoning also comprises the fact that the African nations in question receive lots of foreign aid from Norway.

I can almost picture how the Conservatives' (Høyre's) party leader Erna Solberg reacted when she learned of this suggestion from a party she depends on to support her in a possible government coalition: F*ck!

No doubt she was even more pleased when the Fremskrittspartiet's second-in-command, Per Sandberg, actually took it upon himself to back this proposal in every available media outlet. Letting Sandberg speak in public is a bad idea from the get-go; the combination of his mismatched wardrobe, his propensity for being inappropriate (like suggesting that the highways and interstates should be safe enough that you can DUI without any risk whatsoever) and the fact that he sounds like a bad local revue act (or the "Public Service announcement" leding up to the first track on a DDE record) would make him an unlikely candidate for a spokesperson. Not in Fremskrittspartiet, however.

Considering that many of the refugees come from African countries and that they've thrown away their IDs, this suggestion might spur some "issues" in the unlikely event that it ever comes to fruition. Like the refugees being shipped back to the country they came from, to be held behind bars by the very same people they were being persecuted by. Only this time, their imprisonment would be sponsored by the Norwegian state. Or some of the refugees might work part-time as personnel in their home town, working in their home town, being paid by the Norwegian government to make sure their family members don't leave town.

I think this is a brilliant suggestion - our own version of one of USA's most successful builders of international relations and unbridled PR success; Gitmo.

Connect the dots

The government has approved a proposal by Trondheim municipality wherein Trondheim aims to reduce CO2 emissions by 20% within 2018. The local rag - web edition - has stories on it here and here. To accomplish this, Trondheim has gotten governmental funding to the tune of 700 MNOK earmarked for pedestrian and bicycle lanes, as well as improvement of E6, including a new bridge at Sluppen. In doing so, public transportation, i.e. bus transport, will move more smoothly.

How will Trondheim municipality contribute with their share of the money? You guessed it - reintroduction of toll booths, local increases in fuel prices and rush hour fees. That way those who pollute the most will have to pay their fair share, dammit.

I'm not going to whine about how the reason there's rush hour to begin with is that people have to travel to and from work in Trondheim, without which there would be no revenue to be had for the municipality. Rather, I'd like to point out the following:

• There's absolutely nothing in this proposal - supposedly the first step in the process, with none of the subsequent steps being defined in terms of number, timeline or content - about increasing the capacity or lowering the prices of public transportation. Trondheim buses aren't exactly empty at the moment.
• With Trondheim municipality being the size it is, it's not exactly hard to drive an extra ten minutes, perhaps in conjunction with shopping at one of the malls in the Trondheim outskirts - to fill up on fuel in, say, Malvik. Besides, a lot of the commuters travel in to Trondheim from the surrounding municipalities as well, so all they have to do is buy their fuel closer to home. I'm sure the gas station owners in Trondheim are thrilled about this, seeing as there's absolutely no evidence to support that the total consumption of gas will subside. On the other hand, it's pretty safe to say that when people are willing to sit on a bus for two hours to purchase bacon at half price in Sweden, they'll drive ten more minutes to gas up outside of Trondheim.
• Last I checked, people still need to get to work, and walking isn't a realistic option for most. With no expansion and/or price reduction for public transportation, there's no alternative to the current mode of transportation mode, in which case everything's the same, only more expensive, meaning more revenue for the municipality. Oh, and those of us who commute by car also get the added bonus of being labelled as big-time polluters despite the lack of an alternative.
• A few years back, Trondheim municipality sold its power plant with a hyooge profit. Rather than save the money for a rainy day or invest in local business or infrastructure, everything was invested in the stock market. With the current financial crisis, Trondheim is pretty much broke, which on the scale of things brings us close to the same level as the Terra municipalities.

Now; I'm sure Trondheim's need for cash inflow doesn't have anything to do with the plans for increasing taxes and cost of living without providing anything in return.......right?

Artists against file-sharing

So, the Norwegian Association for Composers and Lyricists (NOPA) has gone public and encouraged people not to vote Venstre, Rødt or SV, due to the said parties program of legalizing file-sharing. And, as we have discussed on this blog earlier, the main concern from the artist, is that none of the parties have a good plan for securing the income to the artist if file sharing is legalized. At least that's how I read it.

Personally, I think the worst part is Venstre's deputy chairman, Trine Skei Grande, who accuses the artist of being the record industry's puppets. Yeah, great respond to somebody who's concerned about their ability to make a living out of music...