Norway has just been through a brutal terrorist attack. A right-wing extremist or really just a monster killed 77 people and has left the country in a state of shock and sadness. My heart goes out to the family of the victims. Norwegians have been strong and it is amazing to see how it has brought this reserved nation together. This is in real life, the picture I am seeing on social networks isn't always quite as beautiful.

When we should be entering into dialogue across political borders and beliefs and trying to work towards unity, I see a lot of people trying to shut people out. They keep posting screenshots of other people's post where they have said something inappropriate or even horrible. There have been numerous encouragement to remove people from their friend list if they say something racist or hateful. I understand people have an urge to distance them from these hateful words, but I don't think this solves anything. I also sometimes suspect that people are doing this to portray themselves in a better light, highlight how much more intelligent they are than anything else, but I might be wrong.

I fear that this will come at the expense of freedom of speech. The dark side of freedom of speech is exactly this. You need to be allowed to say things out loud that aren't always politically correct or appropriate. It is then our duty as society to try to argue with these people that their views are wrong. Trying to shame people into changing their mind by acting intellectually superior never works. Trying to change their mind by excluding them, doesn't work either. If we don't want to discuss with them, they will simply seek out like-minded people elsewhere. Hateful like-minded people that will only help them confirm their beliefs and breed more hate.

Anders Behring Breivik has been repeatedly referred to as lone wolf by the media. Lets not create more lone wolves by removing people from our friends list or by trying to shame them in thinking their beliefs are wrong. Lets engage in a discussion with people that are hateful and have ignorant beliefs. Lets bombard them with research, numbers and arguments that prove them wrong. Ask them to provide the same to back up their arguments, they likely wont be able to. Use this intelligence of yours to prove to them that they are wrong. You might on occasion even learn something new in the process. Not everything politically incorrect is wrong.

I know not all trolls can be tamed but I promise you that you can make an impact on many. It might not sink in right away but if you do it well, their mind will be processing your arguments in the background for a long time and they might eventually change their ways. When you see that your arguments start to sink in, step back and let them think about it. Give them time to come around. If they start posting more hateful things, start again. Rinse and repeat until clean! If you lock them out, their mind will only keep confirming their beliefs and at some point they might spiral into something dangerous.

This is actually something I have been thinking about for years. Now it is no longer just a hypothetical question but an actual issue that needs to be addressed so I thought I would throw this one out there. An appropriate question for the Women's Day. What is the modern day princess?

We have all seen them. Little cute girls dressed up in pink, frilly dresses with tiaras dreaming about being princesses. When someone gives
birth to a little girl people congratulate you with the "little princess". You go to the bookstores and you see the girl section full of pink princess stories. Pretty much everywhere where there is a girl section it is filled with overly pink Disney princesses.

A little princess in the street of Funchal, Madeira

I however don't think the princess concept is appropriate in today's society where we are supposed to be equal to men. It is an outdated image of a pretty helpless princess waiting for just one thing. A handsome, rich prince that comes and marries her. We actually have another name for it these days. We call it a golddigger. The hidden feminist in me gets a mild heart attack at the thought of Silja having these kinds of dreams.

It is much easier with little boys. They dream about being Spiderman or Batman or whatever superhero-man is popular at that time. Much easier to explain to them that they aren't real when the time is right for proper dreams. Princesses, however do exist in real life. Most of them inherit their position or marry into it. One might think that the princess image could be helped by the Norwegian princess Märtha Louise that partially renounced her title and started her own business adventures. Except that her money making scheme is to trick gullible people into believing in angels. Yes you read this right ANGELS! Not exactly a healthy role model there.

So isn't it about time that the princess ideal gets replaced with something else that is a better role model? Someone that has a respectable spot in society earned through hard work and kindness? It needs to be someone with visibility in media but is there any such person out there? The people in media are scandalous movie or music celebrities, politicians that have barely held a real job in their life, career women that have inherited their empires from their fathers, and other ruthless business women? Why are there so few women that have accomplished thing in their life on their own without coming across as brutal? I know they are out there but I still can't think of a single one that could act as a princess substitute.

Princess candidates? I think not!

I guess we could invent a hard working woman that got herself an education and a job, worked hard and got promoted, and maybe even started her own company. She would exercise and eat healthy because that weak princess on the pea concept got to go as well. She then finds a guy that does half of the house work and supports her with her career. No Cinderella dreams for her, she goes out and gets the things that she wants!

The problem is that I can't really see her wearing a pink frilly dress and I can't really see little girls being excited about going to costume parties wearing a little business suit with a laptop bag instead of a tiara. I seem to run into a dead end everywhere.

So does anyone have any ideas who the modern day princess could be? Someone that is successful, visible, and could at least pull off wearing a pink dress on an occasion?

I watched this video before the election and found it a bit too silly. That was untill I saw interviews with people that were shaking, crying and thinking their country was going under after Obama won and realized that it wasn't as far off as I thought.

See the video

I started writing a reflected entry about the American election but the more I read, the angrier I got. So instead I wrote a short, not so reflected angry version of that entry.

Let me ask straight out? How can an civilized, well educated country have a presidental candidate pair that isn't ridiculed by people for being opposed to equal right for homosexuals? We look down on people that discriminate people based on their skin color or sex. Why don't more people point out that it is equally stupid and last century to discriminate people based on their sexual orientation?

How can rich people with all the privileges in the world think they have a right to tell other people whether abortion is right or wrong? A couple with estimated net worth of $100 million and an Alaskan govenor with estimated assets over 1 million dollar are too well off to be able to put themselves in the shoes of other less fortunate people and tell them they should have no problem with raising a baby.

Those are the same people that think it is absurd to have national health care to take care of these same people and these same babies. It is not them that are likely to be denied coverage by the profit hungry insurance companies. They are also the same people that are against giving people proper sex education because they think teaching sex abstinence is so much better... And why do we think people get pregnant and need abortion? Why is it not obvious that the best here is to educate people so that there are less abortions?

Oh and those people are probably thinking it is not smart to encourage too much thinking. Lets teach people about creationism and intelligent design to water out that science education that might get people to think and see that we are just two monkeys from the stone age. Or do they really believe that stuff... not sure what is more worrying?

I am happy to be born in a country and live in another where this kind of thinking is considered ignorant and stupid! Ahhh... it was good to blow off some steam. Now crossing my finger for the more civilized and human candiates :)

As most people might have noticed Iceland is frequently mentioned in the newspapers these days because of the financial collapse there. People are working hard to try to amend the situation but it will be a rough ride for sure.

One thing that didn't help the situation is that Gordon Brown the British Prime Minister used the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act to freeze the assets of an Icelandic bank and putting it up on the list together with Al-Qaeda and the famous axis of evil countries.

This was a blow for the little, peace loving nation far out in the Atlantic ocean that felt they were being unjustly accused. Iceland does not have an army and as far as I know, no Icelander has ever had a terrorist record. Iceland was even at the top of the Global Peace Index in 2008. Some people started a campain to clearly state that we are not terrorist. Particularly nice is a section on the page with postcards people have sent in. Take a look!

So, do you guys think that Osama will soon be calling and inviting me for a tea party? Do I look like a terrorist?

Haven't we all wished for a beauty queen that didn't just want world peace?

Well it looks like we just got one and it is just scary!

I am normally not a big fan of Berlusconi but this one time I think he might be onto something :D

Ronald comes running into the living room and shouts:

- Mommy, mommy grandma gave Harold a new baseball bat and I didn't get one.
* But Ronald, Harald got it for spending all weekend helping her clean out her basement. You didn't want to help.
- It is boring! I wanted to play the Wii and not drag dirty, ugly stuff around.
* Well grandma gave Harld the baseball bat because he worked hard all weekend. You can't expect to get one too when you don't help. I am
sure though that Ronald will let you play with it too.
- That is unfair! I want one too. If I don't get one, he shouldn't have one either! Take it away from him, take it away from him!!

Childish huh? Or is it unfair that Ronald didn't get one?

I had written a long entry about how left winged American polititcs are actually to the right of Norwegian right winged politics when looking at the political landscape as a whole. I had added in some harsh words and judgements about certain parties but I have become so horribly politically polite that I don't feel like posting it.

I need to go and work on my political impoliteness but until then I just want to say one thing as tonight's Democratic election could decide who will be their candidate.

"Go Hillary"!

Freedom of Speech just got flushed down the toiletI have had nothing to say lately and then this just left me speechless. I guess being speechless is good. It at least is a good practice for the time when we no longer have freedom of speech. Seems like there will soon be silence...