25,000 visitors to my blog!!!
25,000 Visitors to my page!
Thank you all!
-That’s what blogging is all about!
25,000 visitors to my blog
Jeg har plassert min blogg i Narvik på norske bloggkart!
All that is forbidden
Well, in this day and age where being insulted is a popular passtime and freedom of speech is under an equal duress as under Hitler’s Germany – wonder how long this shop – which forms the very entrance to the international area at Oslo Airport, Gardermoen – is allowed to sell alcohol before it is declared and insult to the new master race – or should I say master ideology..?
I observed the gardeners as they planted these beautiful “hanging gardens” with the most amazing plants and flowers earlier this summer. At a later visit I took the opportunity to take a few shots (with my camera, not from the contents of the shelves) of this architectural Pièce de résistance. And all the shelfs are actually made out of solid wood. A rarity in this politically correct IKEA-age. The ceiling of elegant lamps form waves of light resembling northern light, and the shapes of the shelf-modules draws your attention to the steep mountains in Norway.
This is really a masterpiece, and as you venture in through the shop, a small carving into the wood makes you go: -Ahh, but of course – Snøhetta – and their brilliant architects designed this sinful landscape in all it’s glory – and did an absolute excellent job at it! I would say traveling abroad from Norway via Gardermoen, will give you an excellent opportunity to study these lush gardens and ravishingly beautiful designs. In the mean time, feel free to enjoy my photos – and those of you who are insulted by this – go do something useful, like dig a hole in the sand.
Update March 17 – 1645 zulu time – thousands of pieces of downed Hercules scattered over large area
Unfortunately it looks like there is no hope of finding the crew of five from the transport plane “Siv” that went missing the other day.
Thousands of pieces of the aircraft has been found on the mountain Kebnekaise at an altitude of around 2,000 meters. The transport plane was en route from Evenes, Norway to Kiruna, Sweden to pick up, and transport military personnel back to Norway. This tragedy could have been much bigger, but that is probably not any consolation for the ones left behind from the crew of five…
Pieces from the transport aircraft partly covered covered in snow near down to the right in this photo (photo: Norwegian Special Forces, FSK, HJK, MJK)
Update 2000 zulu time – still missing up in the mountains
The Norwegian cargo airplane that went missing 1355 zulu time is still not found. According to the news at 2000 zulu time, the faint radio signal that should have been picked up by a Danish SAR EH-101 helicopter is not confirmed.
This cargo airplane is extremely sturdy. I have flown with the old C130. The plane missing is brand new. It has a Go-Around-Autopilot with Auto-Throttle, which enables the plane to take immediate control and climb if it inadvertently is steered towards the ground. That makes this all the more puzzling, and a heavy rotor turbulence associated with Lee Wave in between the mountains could maybe be an explanation, but this is a mere speculation for my part.
In any case, I hope and pray the crew has made it, but time is critical for survivors. It is freezing in the snowy winter mountains.
Storm Bird
Widerø (wideroe.no) is the Norwegian short range airline flying between the short runway airports in Norway. Hats off to the pilots, as long as the cross wind isn’t too strong, they fly. Here is a few shots taken of the flight coming in from and taking off to Bodø (Bodoe).
Observe the wind socks (the red and white wind indicators by the side of the runway. They were pretty stiff today…
Now, the runway is officially appr. 800 meters long, but in reality, RWY 01 is 110 meters longer than the official number, and the north end (RWY 19) is 20 meters extra, so the strip is 910 meters long. Nice to know if you’re coming in a little heavy (FYI flyboys and -girls). Just check it out in Google Earth or Google Maps!
Just landed - Runway 19 - Wideroe Dash 8
Taking off again through the snow showers - Wideroe - Dash 8
Storm Bird - Wideroe, Dash 8 - Climbing through a hole in the snow showers, southwards bound for Bodoe
Narvik Flyklubb
I designed the logo on the front page of the new homepage for the aeroclub in Narvik. It says: Save Narvik Airport Framnes -fly for life!
A few politicians and moneymen in Narvik have decided to shut down this airport and effectively cut off the population from a vital air ambulance service which saves hundreds of lives every year.
Furthermore this airport, in spite of politicians trying to strangle it by restricting commercial flights, actually has a nearly 10% annual growth in passenger traffic.
And finally it is the hub for a vibrant aerosport club. Please visit their brand new website! http://narvikflyklubb.no/
A bit of Plane Spotting
I had 15 minutes at my disposal today. Enough to do a little bit of Plane Spotting. This is a Dash 8 belonging to Widerøe (Wideroe) an airline company under the SAS group. This specific plane has the call-sign LN-WIF and is named after the county Nord-Trøndelag.
But passenger traffic is not the only function of the airport. An ambulance plane arrives almost every day to evacuate patients from the local hospital to the university hospital in Tromsø (Tromsoe) Northern-Norway. A vital service that cannot be replaced any other way, neither by ambulance nor helicopter due to the extreme weather. But a new bridge project and the immensely huge ego of a handful politicians is now threatening to close the airport…
De Havilland Canada DHC-8-103 Dash 8 thundering down the Runway 19 - Narvik Airport - with a cloud of snow whirled up by the two powerful engines of 1,800 shp each
Take off from Narvik - in the background an iron ore carrier waiting to get to port
LN-WIF taking off from Narvik Airport (NVK / ENNK)
Wheels up and turning up against the wind bound for Bodø airport
And soon the Dash is just a dash on the evening sky
SOPA / PIPA postponed indefinitely
The SOPA and PIPA law proposals are postponed indefinately! Which means the World’s Population – not the Entertainment Industry – still has the democratic control over the internet! (For now)
So in order to join in the free expression of the world this entire blog is free under a CC – Creative Commons License – with the following limitations:
Commercial Use: NO (right back at you, greedy entertainement industry) Not without my written permission.
Share alike/alter the work: Yes, you may alter and share my pictures, videos or texts from this blog, as long as you link back to the blog. But still, if for commercial use, you need my written permission.
This license applies to The Whole World!
Dette verk er lisensieret under en Creative Commons Navngivelse-Ikkekommersiell-DelPåSammeVilkår 3.0 Unported lisens.
I am so sorry…
- Do you prefer a safe Internet?
- Do you prefer a stable Internet?
- Do you prefer the old security of rights “Innocent until proven Guilty” to still be a golden rule in democratic societies?
- Do you support a free, prosperous Internet
- Do you oppose giving control over the World’s most significant tool for Prosperity and Freedom of Expression to the entertainment industry and dictatorius regimes?
Please, watch these film:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/defend_our_freedom_to_share_or_why_sopa_is_a_bad_idea.html
http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa
This has NOTHING to do with protecting artists’ Copyright! They are already protected through the law over most parts of the world – and I support the ones I like by buying their music and films.
This has EVERYTHING to do with giving the Entertainment Industry (and subsequently corrupt regimes) the TOTAL control over The Internet…
Still not convinced: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJIuYgIvKsc
- If you are a US citizen, please, contact your congressman today and protest!
- Do you know a US citizen, please urge him/her to protest!
On 1/24 it could be too late… The clock is ticking…
9/11 – 9/14 – never forgetting
You probably remember where you were on 9/11 2001? I was on my way to the pharmacy to pick up some drugs for my father. We had nursed him at home for some time at that point, due to the total incompetence of the local hospital. While driving to town I heard about the terror against the Twin Towers in New York. For the first few seconds I was convinced I had tuned into a film review program. It sounded unreal. The story was so fantastically unbelievable, that I was sure they in the next sentence would mention some director or actor. That was until I heard one of NRK’s famous reporters live from New York. That’s when it dawned on me – the world would never be the same again…
Three days later my dear, loving, wise father passed away from cancer. That is a week I’ll never ever forget – as long as I live. I guess the hurt and the sorrow from these so very evil days has become a part of me. They will never go away, they will probably never truly heal – but they are getting better and more integrated into who I am as a person for every passing day. And in the end – maybe that is what will matter.
By these beautiful – and so very true – words from the film “Dying to have known”, I leave this day and week in the hope of a better world with an end to naivety, stupidity and a prayer for all man kind to serve The Good and turn their back on evil:
For each of us eventually – whether we’re ready or not – some day, it will come to an end. There will be no more sunrises, no more minutes, hours or days. All the things you collected – whether treasured or forgotten – will pass to someone else. Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what you owned or owed. Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear. So too your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do-lists will expire. The wins and losses – that once seemed so important – will fade away. It won’t matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived at the end. Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.
So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured? What will matter is not what you bought but what you built. Not what you got but what you gave. What will matter is not what you learned but what you thought. What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered and encouraged others to emulate your example. What will matter is not your competence but your character. What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone. What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live on in those who loved you. What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.
9-11 - 9-14 - never forgetting
5 dies in horrific mass-accident
Magnhild Meltveit Kleppa - Minister of Transportation (photo: Jarle Vines Jarvin)
A young boy and his father and three health-workers from the local hospital here in Narvik died in a road accident Friday between Tromsø and Narvik involving two buses and car. 6 more are in intensive care at the University Hospital in Tromsø. People die all the time along the roads in Norway. Politicians are more interested in building “systems” to secure their power-base. The minister of Transportation and Communication, Magnhild Meltveit Kleppa, is such an incompetent politician.
This part of the accident-proned road between Narvik and Tromsø should have been secured with spacers between the lanes – but quite incompetently nothing is being done other than hiring more government officials and spending taxpayers money on more laws and regulations.
The Accident Investigators are inspecting the scene and the cars involved. Friday’s Accident seems to have been worse than necessary because several of the passengers failing to use seat belt in the mini-bus involved. Seat belts actually improves your risk of survival by 200% It also decreases your risk of serious injuries just as much. I for one – would not have been here to write these lines to you – if it weren’t for seat belts! Use Seat Belts – Someone Loves You!
Stupid, ignorant, nepotistic politicians and seat belts aside – with this we let our warmest sympathies and heartfelt condolences go out to those who have lost their dear, to those who are struggling for life in the hospital while at the same time coping with the loss of their dear son and father/husband and to the hospital staff who found three of their employees dead in this horrific accident just minutes after meeting them at the hospital.
-The Heroes come from the North! Another Airplane Hijack stopped lats night by North-Norwegian!
TV2 News about the Kato Air hijacking and Heroes from Northern Norway
Last night a passenger (Turkish Airways) plane from Oslo, Norway to Istanbul, Turkey was hijacked by an expelled asylumseeker. A man from Northern Norway – 54 year old Dag Gjerstad from Kvænangen in Troms attacked the hijacker and held him down until the plane landed in Istanbul and the Turkish Police could evacuate the plane and arrest the hijacker.
Muslim terrorist almost killed the Captain and 1st Officer of Kato Air Flight
In 2004 a plane from this city, Narvik enroute to Bodø was hijacked by a muslim terrorist who almost killed the pilots with an axe. The Captain and 1st Officer both sustained serious head injuries and was blinded by blood and partially paralyzed by the violent muslim terrorist. The plane went into a death-dive, and calculations show that the pilot regained control and avoided crashing by some 20 meters… Trond Frantzen and Odd Eriksen – both North-Norwegians attacked the hijacker and battled with him until they managed to free the restrained pilots from their attacker. They almost strangled the hijacker to death until he gave up fighting.
Odd Eriksen broke his back in the following crash landing at the airport in Bodø. The Police couldn’t understand how the pilots managed to land the plane. They both sustained serious head injuries and wounds to their bodies and were partly blinded by blood. The cockpit instruments were soaked in blood. All four heroes, the Captain, 1st Officer, Trond Frantzen and Odd Eriksen and all the passengers survived.
Simple Explanation
Professor in Crisis Psychiatry Lars Weisæth believes the reason why men and women from Northern-Norway are so capable of acting in serious crisis, is because the live in a part of Norway where it is necessary to be able to take Care of yourself. In Northern Norway there is a – at times – violent climate and nature, there is often a long way to the nearest police- and firebrigade-station and the nearest doctor or hospital. Thus forcing us to be able to cope in serious crisis-situations.
-Witness Passivity – a problem
Professor Weisæth says witness passivity is a problem in dramatic events. If the 2004-hijacking had taken place between Oslo and Stockholm chances are the passengers would have been seated, doing nothing, waiting for someone to take action, according to a SAS – Scandinavian Airlines Captain. So being from a city lessens the chance of being a hero.
Some of the best know hero-headlines from Norway the past few years
- Rescued three children from the lit caravan
- Rescued elderly from fire inferno
- 12-year old girl saved three girls from drowning
- 15-year old rescued fisherman from sinking boat
- Tried saving drowned
- Rescued elderly woman from burning house
- Dived deep into capsized “Rocknes” to save seamen
- Busdriver stabbed
Read more in this article from NRK (Norwegian)
Further reading: The Norway Post – Norwegian stops highjacker
劉曉波 – Liu Xiaobo – A very dangerous criminal
Liu Xiaobo - Nobel Peace Price Laureate 2010
Well, that’s what the Chinese governtment thinks. They locked this gentle man for 11 years. His crime? He only wants democracy for his people and the great nation of China to prosper. But his vision of prosperity is obviously not what the Communist Party in China envisions as prosperity.
The Nobel Peace Price committee announced on the 8th of October 2010 that this years laureate was Liu Xiaobo. The Chinese government locked his wife up in house arrest, and has since detained all Xiaobo’s relatives. That means his chair at the ceremony today is going to be empty. The last time this happened was when Nazi Germany send Carl von Ossietzky into concentration camp in 1935.
So why is Liu Xiaobo such a “dangerous criminal”. He is a poet by trade, but he has uttered his ideas about a federal state system, with Tibet and Taiwan as free associated states in this union. That is nothing less than blasphemous words in the ears of the Chinese Communist Party.
Read more about Liu Xiaobo by clicking here.
維基百科的文章關於 2010年諾貝爾和平獎得主中劉曉波中文。 An article in chinese can be found here.
Nobel Medal
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