Posts, November 2003:

Is Europe doomed?: I wrote on Friday that I don't buy the popular American theory that Europe is doomed. A few people have asked me why. Let me rephrase that: I have strong doubts. I have doubts about whether the facts support the [...]

The axis of rudeness: Aftenposten's Per A. Christiansen is no friend of terrorism. But do we really have to use all those big words to describe it? Words with meaning, words that sear, that raise eyebrows, impolite words: [Bush and Blair] are the foremost [...]

Istanbul: Another al-Qaeda attack in Istanbul, this time at a British bank and the British consulate. Many dead and wounded, (at this point why quote figures?) As usual, many victims were Muslim civilians. A man claiming to speak on behalf of [...]

The Ansar-Iraq connection: Looks like there was an al-Qaeda-Iraq connection after all. Not only that, but an Iraq-Ansar al-Islam connection as well: 14. According to a sensitive reporting [from] a "regular and reliable source," [Ayman al] Zawahiri, a senior al Qaeda operative, visited [...]

The scrapyard of historical analogies: Former Conservative PM Kåre Willoch is one of the most outspoken and - because he's not a leftist - respected Israel critics in Norway. When someone from the far left compares Israel to South Africa or Nazi Germany, that's nothing [...]

Norman Vale - more ads: I wrote Norman Vale and asked for the other ads in the anti-terror campaign the European Security Advocacy Group has been running in European newspapers. Here they are - four of them. Articles have mentioned a fifth which wasn't in [...]

A Polarized America: VG's Svein Røhne looks at the New York Times bestseller list, and finds that it's not just him - Bush really is a dumb, untrustworthy scoundrel. Imagine: Halv of the ten most bestselling books in Norway are about how Prime [...]

Modernizing Islam: Minister of Local Government Erna Solberg, who's also in charge of immigration and integration, stuck her head out yesterday. Norway's Muslim community, she said, needs to modernize its beliefs. "The Norwegian Islamic community must make more progress, and see what's [...]

Norman Vale's puppet masters: I don't usually buy paper editions of newspapers, or I would have covered this earlier: An American group headed by Normal Vale is running a political advertisement campaign in several European countries, including Norway. The anti-terror message is one American [...]

Growing steadily worse: Washington correspondent for Aftenposten Kristin Nilsen follows the "steadily worse" template in this story about yesterday's tragic helicopter attack, which killed 16 American soldiers. The problem of the Bush administration is that a growing number of Americans believe that the [...]