Jacob Christensen

• Elektrificering af banenettet DKT NOV2008
  (tags: denmark transport publictransport)
• Amity Shlaes: A Public Service Reminder — Crooked Timber
  …people are losing track of the main point that needs to be hammered home: that Amity Shlaes is an unscrupulous hack
  (tags: blogpost usa economics history journalism)
• Mark Lila: The Perils of 'Populist Chic' – WSJ.com
  John McCain's choice was not a fluke, or a senior moment, or an act of desperation. It was the result of a long campaign by influential conservative intellectuals to find a young, populist leader to whom they might hitch their wagons in the future
  (tags: usa sarahpalin populism politics anti-intellectualism republican history)
• Jacob Mchangama – Retsstaten » Blogarkiv » Tålt ophold og administrative udvisninger – blogs.berlingske.dk
  (tags: denmark legal immigration courts)

Speaking of craziness, in between negotiations over school toilets and extradited Tunisians, the Danish People’s Party entered another of its stock demands into the budget negotiations: A grant for an inventory of art and other objects looted by the Swedes during recurring wars with the intent of demanding the return of said objects to Denmark.

You might want to note that we are talking about a party whose representatives have in all earnest declared that Danes in Schleswig-Holstein should not respect the 1920 border (which was the result of an internationally recognised plebiscite, but never mind) and are dreaming of reuniting Skåne, Halland and Blekinge with Denmark.

Perhaps somebody ought to tell these dreamers that winning instead of losing wars might have kept the lands and objects in Denmark. And why not call for the return of Danelagen, now we are at it?

Swedish tabloids are a strange breed. Andreas Bergh wanted us to read this piece about the Swedish pensions system in Aftonbladet. (I didn’t say recommend, I said wanted us to read. That is something completely different).

Anyway – I thought the piece could be found through Aftonbladet’s main paige, but no. The piece the resistance was a link to an article about the Norwegian women’s nordic skiing team lampooning Russian prostitutes (I kid you not) as well as articles about a proposal for demanding that ISPs keep full records of internet use to be delivered to media companies at the suspicion of file sharing and the Swedish asset (mis)management bank Carnegie being forced to close and having its assets administered by the state.

Oh, and then there was this bit of horror on the editorial page. The Confederation of Swedish Industries demand that the present legislation about redundancies according to which redundancies follow the seniority principle, should be scrapped in favour of a system where the employer has the choice of which employees to keep.

Oh dear. AB’s editorialist is enraged and echoes John McEnroe in yelling “You (ie. the CSI) Cannot Be Serious!” A system that lets employers pick the staff – that would be like … like …. like … Denmark.

There is more to be said about this – especially as I have been on the receiving end of a redundancy process Swedish style – but for now, I’ll just point to the headline of this post.