Jacob Christensen

The University Pond the Day After, originally uploaded by jacobchristensen.

I don’t have a photo of how the pond here at Umeå University looked yesterday after the heavy rainfall, but judging from local newspapers it was an incredible sight.

This is how the pond looked late Wednesday afternoon.

Nazitübbies…?!?

My Flash memory-stick went AWOL in April. It turned out that I hadn’t forgotten it somewhere: It had been hiding under a pile of paper and books in my office all the time.

Flemming Juul Christiansen and I have written (or to be more precise: Flemming did the ground work and I then mashed up the text…) a round-up of the developments in Danish politics during the last weeks. It has been sent to the members of the PSA Scandinavian Politics mail-list and it should be due on the website later today or tomorrow.

Keep an eye on this page!

Meanwhile, the governor of the Danish National Bank, Nils Bernstein, in an interview with the Danish financial daily Børsen voiced unusually sharp concern about the government’s budget proposal by arguing that the expansive fiscal policy in the proposal is ill-timed and would endanger the fixed exchange rate policy introduced in 1982.

Mr. Bernstein is one of the most experienced civil servants in Denmark and served as permanent secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office between 1996 and 2005.

Spelling errors can be unintentionally informing. DR tells us that track works has sent DSB’s passenger fleeing. (I have a screenshot as proof – the journalist wrote the singular passager instead of the plural passagerer).

Bloggers seem to have some problems with Apple hardware. I’d better be careful.

Just some word of advice for readers who cook their own food: Pouring water on burning oil is a bad idea.

A very bad idea.

This is what will happen to you.

If oil catches fire in a casserole, you should take it off the heat immediately and put the lid on. Ususally the fire will go out in a couple of minutes.

In my case, I’m happy to tell you that the casserole survived and is now clean and well. I even managed to save the dinner.

The kitchen still smells of burnt olive oil, though.

In case anybody wonders: I haven’t been hit by the floodings here in Umeå, but brother what a thunderstorm we had last night.

Oh, yes, we shouldn’t forget about this: The Danish government’s budget proposal is out.

More fun for the spinsters.

I’ve occasionally watched the programme “Jersild & spin” where journalist/host Jens Olaf Jersild discusses political developments with two former political advisers. The title gives the clue to the content – there is a lot of discussion about spin, strategy and tactics, less about policies and their potential consequences, and while positioning and perception undoubtedly is an important part of politics, the exclusive focus on this can get a bit tiresome in the long run: You’ve watched 10 programmes, you’ve watched them all.

Now, TV2 Danmark has revived CNN’s old Crossfire formula (I might as well admit that I gave CNN a miss back when I had cable TV) in a series where two ex-spinsters Peter Mogensen, former advisor to Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, and Michael Kristiansen, former advisor to Anders Fogh Rasmussen, act as co-hosts.

Right. (It isn’t podcasted so I can’t watch it)

The funny – or perhaps very serious – part now is that liberal Danish blogger Jarl Cordua in his post about the show links to a review by Kristian Madsen who is an advisor to the danish TUC. Madsen performs a simple but thorough demolition job on the show by offering us a link to Jon Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire.

Let us just note that 1) Danish media are happy to copy anything out of the U.S. without reflecting on the context, 2) in the U.S. you have to go to the comics for serious political commentary.

Just to set things straight: Jarl Cordua would like to note that he is a liberal and not a libertarian. My detachment from the Danish blogosphere is obvious.