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Norway Approves Gay Marriage
OSLO, Norway - Gay couples in Norway will be granted the same rights as heterosexuals to marry, adopt and undergo artificial insemination under a new equality law passed Tuesday.
Norway's upper house of parliament voted 23-17 in favor of the gender-neutral marriage law on the same day that gay couples were marrying in California.
The law replaces 1993 legislation that gave gays the right to enter civil unions similar to marriage but did not allow church weddings or adoption. It takes effect Jan. 1.
"We are so overjoyed. We have worked for this for so long," said Jon Reidar Oeyan, leader of the Norwegian National Association of Lesbian and Gay Liberation. OSLO, Norway - Gay couples in Norway will be granted the same rights as heterosexuals to marry, adopt and undergo artificial inseminat... more -
UNIMORE VS OSLO
Un'inchiesta che vuole confrontare l'Università italiana con quella europea, prendendo come esempio l'Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia --risultata prima in Italia secondo il Sole 24 ore- e l'Università di Oslo. Si tratta di un confronto che analizza come le stesse problematiche (Alloggi, servizi, tasse..) vengono trattate dalle 2 diverse realtà universitarie. Non si tratta di un servizio di critica ma propositivo: il servizio termina con alcune proposte che in concreto potrebbero essere realizzate dall'Università per migliorare i servizi agli studenti e per migliorarsi.
http://www.youtube.com/0format Un'inchiesta che vuole confrontare l'Università italiana con quella europea, prendendo come esempio l'Università di Mod... more -
Castelli di sabbia sulla banchina del porto di Oslo
Una piacevole passeggiata sulla banchina del porto di Oslo mi ha regalato questa incredibile performance di un virtuoso della chitarra che ha regalato ai passanti questa stupenda cover di "Castle made of sands" dei Jimi Hendrix Experience's, eseguita suonando due chitarre contemporaneamente. Una piacevole passeggiata sulla banchina del porto di Oslo mi ha regalato questa incredibile performance di un virtuoso della chitarra... more
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Al Gore's speech - Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, Oslo, DECEMBER 10, 2007 - 2. p...
In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter. Major cities in North and South America, Asia and Australia are nearly out of water due to massive droughts and melting glaciers. Desperate farmers are losing their livelihoods. Peoples in the frozen Arctic and on low-lying Pacific islands are planning evacuations of places they have long called home. Unprecedented wildfires have forced a half million people from their homes in one country and caused a national emergency that almost brought down the government in another. Climate refugees have migrated into areas already inhabited by people with different cultures, religions, and traditions, increasing the potential for conflict. Stronger storms in the Pacific and Atlantic have threatened whole cities. Millions have been displaced by massive flooding in South Asia, Mexico, and 18 countries in Africa. As temperature extremes have increased, tens of thousands have lost their lives. We are recklessly burning and clearing our forests and driving more and more species into extinction. The very web of life on which we depend is being ripped and frayed.
We never intended to cause all this destruction, just as Alfred Nobel never intended that dynamite be used for waging war. He had hoped his invention would promote human progress. We shared that same worthy goal when we began burning massive quantities of coal, then oil and methane.
Even in Nobel?s time, there were a few warnings of the likely consequences. One of the very first winners of the Prize in chemistry worried that, ?We are evaporating our coal mines into the air.? After performing 10,000 equations by hand, Svante Arrhenius calculated that the earth?s average temperature would increase by many degrees if we doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Seventy years later, my teacher, Roger Revelle, and his colleague, Dave Keeling, began to precisely document the increasing CO2 levels day by day.
But unlike most other forms of pollution, CO2 is invisible, tasteless, and odorless -- which has helped keep the truth about what it is doing to our climate out of sight and out of mind. Moreover, the catastrophe now threatening us is unprecedented ? and we often confuse the unprecedented with the improbable.
We also find it hard to imagine making the massive changes that are now necessary to solve the crisis. And when large truths are genuinely inconvenient, whole societies can, at least for a time, ignore them. Yet as George Orwell reminds us: ?Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.?
In the years since this prize was first awarded, the entire relationship between humankind and the earth has been radically transformed. And still, we have remained largely oblivious to the impact of our cumulative actions.
Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. Now, we and the earth's climate are locked in a relationship familiar to war planners: "Mutually assured destruction."
More than two decades ago, scientists calculated that nuclear war could throw so much debris and smoke into the air that it would block life-giving sunlight from our atmosphere, causing a "nuclear winter." Their eloquent warnings here in Oslo helped galvanize the world?s resolve to halt the nuclear arms race.
Now science is warning us that if we do not quickly reduce the global warming pollution that is trapping so much of the heat our planet normally radiates back out of the atmosphere, we are in danger of creating a permanent ?carbon summer.?
As the American poet Robert Frost wrote, ?Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice.? Either, he notes, ?would suffice.?
But neither need be our fate. It is time to make peace with the planet. In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter. Major cities... more -
Al Gore's speech - Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, Oslo, DECEMBER 10, 2007
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honorable members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen.
I have a purpose here today. It is a purpose I have tried to serve for many years. I have prayed that God would show me a way to accomplish it.
Sometimes, without warning, the future knocks on our door with a precious and painful vision of what might be. One hundred and nineteen years ago, a wealthy inventor read his own obituary, mistakenly published years before his death. Wrongly believing the inventor had just died, a newspaper printed a harsh judgment of his life?s work, unfairly labeling him ?The Merchant of Death? because of his invention ? dynamite. Shaken by this condemnation, the inventor made a fateful choice to serve the cause of peace.
Seven years later, Alfred Nobel created this prize and the others that bear his name.
Seven years ago tomorrow, I read my own political obituary in a judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken ? if not premature. But that unwelcome verdict also brought a precious if painful gift: an opportunity to search for fresh new ways to serve my purpose.
Unexpectedly, that quest has brought me here. Even though I fear my words cannot match this moment, I pray what I am feeling in my heart will be communicated clearly enough that those who hear me will say, ?We must act.?
The distinguished scientists with whom it is the greatest honor of my life to share this award have laid before us a choice between two different futures ? a choice that to my ears echoes the words of an ancient prophet: ?Life or death, blessings or curses. Therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.?
We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency ? a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst ? though not all ? of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.
However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world?s leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler?s threat: ?They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.?
So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun.
As a result, the earth has a fever. And the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself. We asked for a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth. And the consistent conclusion, restated with increasing alarm, is that something basic is wrong.
We are what is wrong, and we must make it right.
Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is ?falling off a cliff.? One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years.
Seven years from now. Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honorable members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen. ... more -
Al Gore Accepts Nobel Prize and Calls for Climate 'Mobilization'
Al Gore received his Nobel Peace Prize yesterday, declaring that America would ?stand accountable before history? if it failed to take action to combat climate change.
?It is time to make peace with the planet,? he said in a speech in Oslo. ?We must mobilise our civilisation with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilised for war.?
His remarks came as governments met in Bali, Indonesia, to work on a new international treaty on carbon emissions to replace Kyoto by 2012. Mr Gore will join the talks tomorrow. Al Gore received his Nobel Peace Prize yesterday, declaring that America would ?stand accountable before history? if it failed to take... more -
Congratulations, Mr. Gore!
I watched you receive your Nobel Peace Prize earlier on this morning, and just now I listened to your speech which is one of the very best speeches I have ever had the privilege of hearing. You laid it all out in a most magisterial manner, and you showed rare statesmanship as you received your prize and as you delivered your speech. I wonder if America realizes just what it lost when it accepted the cheat Bush to take your rightful place in the White House, nigh on seven years ago. I watched you receive your Nobel Peace Prize earlier on this morning, and just now I listened to your speech which is one of the very ... more
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I left my Norwegian space disco ball in San Francisco
SF Guardian's cover (!) story on the unlikely space disco connection between SF and Oslo.
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Weekday Norway Runway
VC2 producer Lukas Renlund returns to his native home of Oslo during fashion week to capture the latest looks on the streets of Oslo. http://www.oslostil.com VC2 producer Lukas Renlund returns to his native home of Oslo during fashion week to capture the latest looks on the streets of Oslo. ... more
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Weekday Norway Runway
VC2 producer Lukas Renlund & Hilde Groven return to their native home of Oslo during fashion week to capture the latest looks on the streets of Oslo. http://www.oslostil.com VC2 producer Lukas Renlund & Hilde Groven return to their native home of Oslo during fashion week to capture the latest looks on t... more
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