Election time

As a good Norwegian I might even vote this year, provided we make it to the embassy in time, of course (Larsbars needs a passport, so birds and stone comes to mind - or flies and swatter, if indeed you are Norwegian...

I did my aunts paper's "electomat" (you put in what you think about things, and they tell you what party most closely reflects your 'values') - yes, it requires interest in Norwegian voter's issues and a slight command of the Norwegian language), http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/politikk/valg2005/valgomat/ at first I came out Hoyre - conservative liberal (must sound like an oxymoron to most non Norwegians). Interestingly, by shifting my responses from "a little bit important" to "very important" on a couple of issues I came out Venstre - Center Liberal.

The conclusion seems to be that if you feel stronger about something you turn more moderate. I believe this would be referred to as "Swedish logic" in an academic setting, or maybe "biased", if not just "junk". It would be worth mentioning to the uninitiated that Aftenposten is indeed a conservative liberal newspaper, whos editorial team might be sparklingly unbiased, but the guy with the logarithms might be on the shady side of geekdom.

These last paragraphs are mainly used to make sure I can fit all the main political parties' logos along the margin, neat isn't it?

It also gives me an opportunity to repeat one of the wisest things (MAYBE) I ever heard about English v. American homes. "You get the same thing for your money, it's just bigger in America". Well Simon, it kind of makes sense, we have a bigger house for the same money. I suppose our expectations has made it 'the same thing for our money', but I find it interesting that our dining/living room in Sonning was the size of our master bedroom now, and that Lars would have had to sleep in our cupboard had we still lived in the village on the Thames.