BlingYou

Inspired by my own blog post yesterday about texting while driving, I decided to check out some road safety commercials on youtube. I have seen many more traffic accidents up close and personal than I would like to think about, and in most cases – they were completely unnecessary.

Most people, and perhaps myself included, have a nonchalant view on driving and rarely thinks about the consequences of being on the road. One thing is what can happen to your car, loosing your license etc, few of us think about the harm we can cause others. The legislation in most countries have specific laws on accidents caused by negligence or intentionally, and most do not really know how low negligence will go when the ifs and buts of the accident are discussed in court months later. Its probably enough to be texting on your phone, driving 20 km/h above the posted speed limit, the fact that you had bad tires or brakes, was drunk, was overloaded your car and the list goes on.

Since I spend quite a lot of time on the road, and try to buckle up my seat belt, drive safely and responsible – I too am relying on that all the rest of you are doing the same. From my previous experience, I know that many are not. Anyway, enough morals, please have a look at some road safety films that I found, and they should all make you think how you drive. If not, you are downright stupid and should have your license revoked. That last bit is not a joke, btw..

The Gwent Police in Wales has paired up with local talent to produce a “what if”-video of young people texting while driving. It turns out that this is a huge problem amongst young drivers, and is potential disastrous – as it may take away up to 35% of your attention. With todays complicated traffic and amount of idiot drivers, you need that 35%!

Chief Inspector John Pavett from Gwent Police Roads Policing Unit hopes the serious message in this film will hit home to viewers and sais: “I hope that after watching this film motorists will think twice before picking up their mobile phone when behind the wheel and realize that a quick reply to a text message or answering a phone call is never worth putting theirs and other people’s lives at risk.”

If you have a drivers license, you should really spend the few minutes it takes to see this video – it will definitely make you think. You may have to confirm your birth date to see the video, as the content is not for minors.

Surveys have shown that six our of ten use their mobile phone while driving, either by calling or sending SMS messages. Among young people under 30, seven out of ten have SMS’ed while driving. Men use their mobile phone more than women while driving.

We should all stop using our cell phones while driving unless equipped with a complete hands free setup, and we’ll all be around much longer.

Today the news had a story about the person responsible for the Lockerbie attack, where Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down by a bomb over the village of Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988. 270 people were killed in the attack, including 11 on the ground. 180 of the victims were American and this was the most deadly strike on the US prior to the 911 attacks.

Debris of Pan Am Flight 103

In 2001 Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer, was sentenced to life in prison for the attack and he has been serving in Scotland since.

All well and good one might think, since he got life in prion. That would mean that he will remain in prison until the end of his life, not getting out until he is nose up in a box.. (dramatic pause) NOT!

Al-Megrahi arriving in Tripoli, Libya

The Scottish authorities have decided that he should be pardoned on compassionate grounds, since he is diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and has less than three months to live. He has been allowed to travel back to Libya to spend his remaining days with his family and received a hero’s welcome by thousands of Libyans when arriving in Tripoli.

There has been a number of protest agains the pardoning of al-Negrahi, both from US authorities and other governments around the world. Also, the families of the victims of the bombing have protested, but to no avail. The Scottish authorities believes in humane treatment, and I agree in principle, and letting this criminal die in prison alone was, in their view, inhumane. Those who disagree make a very valid point when saying through their lawyer: “He showed no compassion to the victims, and he’s lived two decades more than any of their loved ones have”

This terrorist and mass murderer should have stayed in jail until dead, it would have been the only sensible thing to do. Not because we want to torment him or his family, but because this sets a dangerous precedence for future criminal acts of the same nature. If you are sick from something terminal you really don’t have much to loose when committing a criminal or terrorist act anymore, you will be let out to die at home, no matter what. This is perhaps not the complete truth, but it will be an easy selling point when recruiting those that are not willing to blow themselves up but still want to contribute to “the cause”, whatever cause that may be.

I believe that this was a foolish and short sighted call from the Scottish, they should have foreseen the controversy and outrage this has caused, and the screwed up signals they are sending to would be criminals and terrorists. There is nothing inhumane or incompassionate about nursing a convict until he dies in the prison hospital, with his family around him, rather than as a free man and a hero of the people in the same country that financed the terrorist act in the first place.

This was a really bad and potentially dangerous call, so shame on you Scotland.

The memorial in Lockerbie with the names of the 270 people killed

A few days ago I posted some images of Matt Damon from the period he was filming the movie “The Informant!“. Many of these, well all actually, showed a relatively fat and unfit Matt Damon, as the part he was playing was just that, fat and unfit. Being the method, or at least dedicated, actor that he is; he got fat to be able to play the part better.

End of story? Eh, no..

Today I received a complaint! Someone I know contacted me off blog, in what adults call the real world, or IRL for short, and complained about just posting pictures where Matt Damon looks less hunky than his normal self. To please this person and stop the yelling and crying, I had to promise to post some pictures where he looks good too, so here is – for your viewing pleasure – a sexier Matt Damon

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The famous, at least in Norway, espionage case against Arne Treholt is finalized, at last. Arne Treholt, dob December 13, 1942, was a sub department head and press spokesman for the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs when he was arrested on the 20th of January 1984, charged with espionage.

The case was handled by Eidsivating Lagmannsrett  between 25th of February and the 20th of June 1985. Arne Treholt was sentenced to 20 years in prison for espionage on behalf of The Soviet Union and Iraq. The case was later appealed to the Supreme Court, but Treholt later withdrew his appeal.

Treholt has several times applied for a retrial, in both 1986 and 1990. The appeals were turned down by Eidsivating Lagmannsrett and later the following appeals to the Supreme Court was denied.

Arne Treholt was pardoned on the 3rd of Juli 1992 due to health issues, after having served 8 years and 5 months of his 20 year sentence. Treholt later filed a third appeal for a re-opening of his case to the Gjenåpningskommisjonen (Norwegian Criminal Cases Review Commission) but this was denied on the 23rd of January 2005.

Since the case now is over and done with, and there are no more possibilities for appeals or retrials, the Norwegian Police Security Service, the PST, have released some images that has not been made public before. The PST has also put together an overview of the case with more images, unfortunately only in Norwegian, but if you are interested you can find it here.

Anyone in Norway old enough to read newspapers or watch TV in the 80s know about the Treholt case. We have only had a couple of them in our country’s relatively short existence, one other being the Galtung-Haavik case, and the controversy relating to his pardon and later books and interviews has stirred up much debate.

Arne Treholt himself is states that “there are no new information in this case” when asked to comment the new images. Treholt would like more openness regarding the whole case, and has several times asked that the whole verdict be made public. He then continues “.. the only secrets in this verdict is that it does not contain anything secret“. Treholt has admitted gross misconduct during his service in the Ministry of Foreign Affaris, but has never admitted guilt for espionage.

According to the director of communications at PST, Trond Hagubakken, no more of the extensive material related to the Treholt case and trial will ever be published.

At last this case is over, and in the gallery below you can see the images that are “new” in this case.

As the title indicates, this is more of Matt Damon. Not necessarily more information or many more images – but certainly a Matt Damon that is more by himself. I am a big fan of Matt Damon, so I am not trying to put him down or anything, I just find it interesting how some actors will go through just about anything to fit the part in movies that they play in. The images below are taken while Matt was filming The Informant. Luckily he is now back to his attractive, hot and slender looking self

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If you would like another, and more extreme, example of transformations, have a look at the things Christian Bale has gone through for his movies.

The movie poster for the Informant

Matt Damon is by many viewed as one of the sexiest men alive, but he will still adjust his body to fit any part he plays in a movie. In the Bourne trilogy he was athletic and buffed, in the upcoming movie “The Informant!” – he is downright fat. According to Damon he gained 30 pounds (13.6 kg) to play the role of the company vice president turned whistleblower, Marc Whitacre.

“I definitely got doughy” sais Damon, now back to his leaner, slimmer self, according to EW.  “I started eating like crazy and drinking dark beer. Between meals on set, I’d eat a No. 1 Value Meal at McDonald’s and then Doritos on top of it. It was absolute heaven.”

Well, many of us do exactly that, but more for pleasure than high profile roles in movies, and many of us have problems getting back too..

Anyway, have a look at the trailer for the movie “The Informant!” – I am looking forward to it this September.

The renowned fashion blogger Facehunter recently visited Oslo to get an overview of what Norwegian street fashion is like. He visited during the annual “Fashion week” but spent more time photographing people on the street, as trends surface there first. Below is an interview with Yvan Rodic and his experiences here. Parts of the video is in Norwegian, but you get the point anyway.

The new holy grail of music is Spotify, the streaming program for virtually all music ever made digital. The program is currently in beta/limited availability – and music lovers all over the world are craving to get in and share the bliss. I have been using this program since last fall, and its addictive Most of the music you listened to when you had time to listen to music is there, along with lots of new, and still for you, undiscovered artists.

Once you get the hang of it, you can share the play lists you have created on sharemyplaylists.com or download somebody else’ compilation of music. Its a  great way to expand your musical horizon.

The program has both a free and paid model and for a reasonable prize per month (€ 10/£ 10/Nkr 99) you will not have to endure the commercials plaguing the free version. When I first started using this program the commercials were few and far apart, but I have noticed that they are coming more and more often – something that is understandable if you have a product to sell, and a great product at that. The guys at Spotify are currently not giving access to the program for other countries than the UK and Sweden, and if you want to listen to great music with great quality – you have to cheat.

I will try to explain how its possible to register with Spotify from another country than the two that are currently given access. I don’t want to do anything illegal, so if this trickery is illegal in any way, this post will be removed.

Try this:

• Find a proxy in Sweden or the UK. This one is in the UK and works, at least for now.
• Enter “spotify.com” in the blank field in the middle of the page. Any surfing through the proxy is now done as a UK Internet user.
• Click the green “Get started” icon.
• You should now be on the “register new user” page and fill in the information you want to use, like username, email address, gender etc. Remember that you officially is doing this in the UK, so you need a UK postal code. I did a simple google search to find one.
• Enter the letters and/or numbers in the gray field exactly, tick “I agree with the Spotify end user agreement” and then “Create account and proceed“.

With any luck you should now have a valid UK user account with Spotify and can download the client. Registering spotify with this method is done at your own risk and may be immoral in some sense of the word.

Spotify should open up their service to everyone asap so stuff like this would not be necessary.

Feel free to comment if this worked for you, and Good luck

Everybody needs motivation from time to time, but more often than not, demotivation is much more to the point and funnier. Below is a tiny collection of some of the motivational and demotivational posters that are floating around the Internet for you to get upset about, humored, annoyed or fascinated by- if not  irritated over. Still, emotional numbness is not good for you, so have a look and see if any of them strike a chord with you. If you don’t believe me, ask your physician