I should have kept up on Irish politics.
Norwegian politics is boring, the only point of interest at the moment being that the newspapers and people in general have recently discovered that illegal immigrants are sometimes people with actual lives and identities, not just scary masses of Otherness, and so they want the government to make exceptions for that one person (but god forbid we make the rules more humane to begin with).
Britain...
Don't get me started.
Norwegian politics is boring, the only point of interest at the moment being that the newspapers and people in general have recently discovered that illegal immigrants are sometimes people with actual lives and identities, not just scary masses of Otherness, and so they want the government to make exceptions for that one person (but god forbid we make the rules more humane to begin with).
Britain...
Don't get me started.
*MySmiley*
structured procrastinator
structured procrastinator
So the Irish government has basically imploded.
- 23/01/2011 04:47:10 PM
1530 Views
I am now confused
- 23/01/2011 05:34:31 PM
898 Views
You do realize Britain is pretty much the envy of the Western world at the moment?
- 23/01/2011 06:27:05 PM
951 Views
Re: You do realize Britain is pretty much the envy of the Western world at the moment?
- 23/01/2011 06:34:47 PM
873 Views
I did. There was more violence than in ours, that's true (ours have none so far, knock on wood).
- 23/01/2011 06:41:34 PM
854 Views
Re: I did. There was more violence than in ours, that's true (ours have none so far, knock on wood).
- 23/01/2011 06:43:41 PM
791 Views
Those protests were only violent by British standards.
- 23/01/2011 11:54:15 PM
861 Views
What protests?
- 24/01/2011 07:26:49 PM
893 Views
Re: What protests?
- 24/01/2011 07:28:40 PM
770 Views
Re: What protests?
- 25/01/2011 09:23:17 AM
894 Views
There's a new objection
- 25/01/2011 11:38:25 AM
832 Views
I didn't object...
- 25/01/2011 11:47:11 AM
719 Views
And Britain had to live with the Conservative Wilderness for 15 years before it could get there *NM*
- 24/01/2011 02:43:16 AM
430 Views
Should I start chiming in on Norwegian politics now that I'm here...? 
- 24/01/2011 12:42:03 AM
720 Views
- 24/01/2011 12:42:03 AM
720 Views
Why not?
- 24/01/2011 08:49:07 AM
859 Views
'Cos I doubt you'll like what I have to say, for one thing.
- 26/01/2011 01:55:13 AM
857 Views
That's been a while coming, hasn't it? Cowen seems to be losing it.
- 23/01/2011 05:48:30 PM
839 Views
Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 06:27:27 PM
902 Views
Re: Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 06:33:26 PM
854 Views
Re: Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 07:19:03 PM
947 Views
Re: Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 07:57:05 PM
808 Views
Re: Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 09:29:03 PM
907 Views
Re: Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 09:46:20 PM
865 Views
I think Adams is an Irish citizen, and not a British one.
- 23/01/2011 11:45:34 PM
823 Views
I found out something else today which makes it even better.
- 24/01/2011 10:37:45 PM
979 Views
I was reading your post and going "what about the Chiltern Hundreds"?
- 24/01/2011 10:44:32 PM
830 Views
Oh, alternatively we could elevate him to the House of Lords.
- 26/01/2011 11:08:44 PM
841 Views
Awesome idea. Something like "Baron Adams of Londonderry", I'm thinking. *NM*
- 27/01/2011 07:54:26 PM
415 Views
We made his arch-rival a Lord, after all, so it would only be fair.
- 28/01/2011 08:26:15 AM
777 Views
Here you go
- 25/01/2011 12:55:33 PM
921 Views
well, the only interesting thing in swedish politics is a wikileaks document and the reactions...
- 23/01/2011 06:21:00 PM
898 Views
What is inappropriate about trying to keep out barbaric unskilled people?
- 23/01/2011 10:59:53 PM
852 Views
- 26/01/2011 07:46:19 PM
824 Views
The inappropriateness is the generalisation in the claim
- 23/01/2011 11:16:52 PM
830 Views
Generalizations are inappropriate when they are disproven by statistics, and appropriate when proven
- 24/01/2011 07:33:14 PM
786 Views
I've looked into the statistics a bit more.
- 24/01/2011 09:11:52 PM
804 Views
I take it you're talking about the Middle East in its most narrow sense here.
- 24/01/2011 09:56:22 PM
846 Views
... the fact that they are asylum seekers, and their skill certainly shouldn't matter in that case.
- 24/01/2011 07:08:14 PM
732 Views
- 26/01/2011 07:46:19 PM
824 Views
Hopefully they'll stop using Irish officially as a way to cut down on unnecessary costs.
- 23/01/2011 10:57:08 PM
775 Views
I'd support that
- 23/01/2011 11:26:20 PM
847 Views
Ironically, if you de-officialised Irish you could get EU money to help preserve it.
- 23/01/2011 11:48:14 PM
758 Views
But why, why?
- 24/01/2011 08:35:43 PM
744 Views
Because it's the only thing justifying their insistence they're not British?
- 24/01/2011 10:03:54 PM
795 Views
- 24/01/2011 10:03:54 PM
795 Views
But all language learning should be purely voluntary (after what parents teach their children).
- 25/01/2011 03:05:28 AM
778 Views
What, so you don't think students in high school should be taught foreign languages?
- 25/01/2011 06:34:21 PM
750 Views
Irish is the mother tongue of about 7,000-15,000 people at most.
- 26/01/2011 05:04:00 AM
821 Views
Wikipedia says it's more like 40k-80k.
- 26/01/2011 06:41:41 PM
1192 Views
And Elaine, Stephen, or any other Irish people here: do feel free to comment. *NM*
- 26/01/2011 06:42:36 PM
432 Views
*NM*
- 26/01/2011 06:42:36 PM
432 Views
More to the point, are YOU interested in learning Irish?
- 26/01/2011 05:15:18 AM
728 Views
Calling Ireland the new Sodom and Gomorrah, are you?
- 26/01/2011 06:02:05 PM
889 Views
- 26/01/2011 06:02:05 PM
889 Views
I don't think it's as fun as Sodom and Gomorrah, at least not post-crisis. 
- 26/01/2011 09:48:54 PM
850 Views
- 26/01/2011 09:48:54 PM
850 Views
Re: I don't think it's as fun as Sodom and Gomorrah, at least not post-crisis.
- 27/01/2011 08:42:21 PM
707 Views
- 27/01/2011 08:42:21 PM
707 Views
Presumably because they agree with J.R.R. Tolkien and Tómas Sæmundsson about language's importance.
- 24/01/2011 10:16:05 PM
890 Views
So Australians and New Zealanders are really English then? Austrians are just Germans?
- 25/01/2011 03:01:14 AM
850 Views
I never said I agreed 
.
- 25/01/2011 08:19:11 AM
821 Views
.
- 25/01/2011 08:19:11 AM
821 Views
I would suggest that a distinct dialect does the job just as well
- 25/01/2011 02:23:59 PM
834 Views
The thing is, people who feel really strongly about that usually insist it's a separate language.
- 28/01/2011 04:20:57 PM
699 Views
It's really more about having a unique silly costume to wear at Miss Universe pageants.
- 26/01/2011 05:09:10 AM
688 Views
You're confusing what we sell to gullible American tourists with what we actually value . *NM*
- 28/01/2011 04:15:01 PM
367 Views
. *NM*
- 28/01/2011 04:15:01 PM
367 Views
What the hell happened to the Celtic Tiger Country? *NM*
- 24/01/2011 05:47:12 AM
465 Views
The Celtic Tiger is dead, Ireland had a GDP contraction of 14% in the last two years.
- 24/01/2011 01:47:06 PM
801 Views
It's still there, but it aimed a bit too high and got a bit scorched.
- 24/01/2011 10:07:36 PM
677 Views