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05.07.09

When two educated people break up…

Posted in Life at 16:39 by krikkert

When two educated people break up, what happens? What if they have the same degree? Let’s have a look.

Psychologists

  • The girl accuses the boy of using her as a replacement for his mother, in lieu of something better. Boy accuses girl of indecent relationship to cigars.

Sociology

  • Both parties claim that the other party was suppressing them.

Archeology

  • Boy attempts to bury past, girl keeps digging it up.

Drama

  • OH MY GOD! Darling — everything we had IS IN SHAMBLES!

Biology

  • - All you wanted was access to my genes.

Physics

  • Both parties accept that what goes up must come down.

Journalists

  • “And it was in this house that Jack (19) and Jill (18) at 11 PM last night announced their respective break-ups after only two weeks.”

Women’s Studies

  • - HE did it!

Business

  • Both of them decide that they spend too much money together, and that it’s more rational to be single.

History

  • They agree that the cause of the break-up is a matter of the past.

Geography

  • Both agree that moving far, far away is the best solution.

Anatomy

  • - I’ve never actually liked your body.

Literature

  • The ending proceeds in the form of well-written letters, complete with a lead-in, a main part, and conclusions, but neither of them manage to communicate anything useful to the other party.

Teachers

  • They both agree that it was a learning experience.

Architecture

  • The fundament wasn’t any good anyways.

Philosophy

  • If two people break up in a student house, and nobody can confirm the break-up, are they then single?

Chemistry

  • There was simply no chemistry.

Music

  • Both write a long piece to express their sorrow. At least one go into country music.

Law

  • Mutual suits are filed for illegal neglect of a contractual agreement regarding dates.

Instruksjon av Høyesterett?

Posted in Uncategorized at 16:14 by krikkert

I kjølvannet av denne saken, der en chilener fikk bli i kongeriket på grunn av manglende tilknytning til Chile, har det dukket opp noen interessante innlegg i “blogosfæren”.

Det foreslås blant annet at politikerne bør kunne instruere Høyesterett:

Dette er det vanskelig å tro kan være sant, og om det er sant så har i all fall høyesterett fattet en beslutning som er så ufornuftig at en skulle tro dommerne var evneveike. Fjernt fra samfunnet og folk flest disse opphøyde høyesterett dommerne. Har tydeligvis ikke bakkekontakt og føling med livets realiteter. Når høyesterett gjør slike idiotiske beslutninger så må de regne med at folk flest helt mister tilliten til dem.

Når våre dommere i høyesterett har så liten vurderingsevne, så bør våre politikere gå inn å instruere dem, slik at vi slipper flere slike skandaler som dette.

Hvilket juridisk grunnlag skulle politikerne ha for å instruere Høyesterett, mon tro? Vi vet jo at Grunnloven bygger på maktfordelingsprinsippet1, så at den lovgivende forsamling skulle instruere dommerne virker nok ganske fjernt for “folk flest”.

Det at dommere faktisk klarer å holde seg saklige og vurdere sakens faktum uten å gi seg hen til billig populisme ser jeg på som positivt. Dommere skal dømme etter loven, ikke etter folkemengden. Rettssikkerhet og likhet for loven gjelder også for kriminelle. Utrolig, men sant.

Bjarte kommer med bedre argumenter i  sin kommentar av saken, der det stilles spørsmål om legitimiteten av å gi en person som har tatt seg til kongeriket ulovlig lovlig opphold. Bestemmelsen i utlendingsloven § 8 annet ledd om sterke mennesklige hensyn har tydeligvis blitt veiet og funnet meget tung i denne saken.

  1. dog litt modifisert i 1884 [↩]

05.05.09

Posted in Life, Work at 23:57 by krikkert

Inappropriately stolen from The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat, apparently a fellow paper-pusher:

Rule #O: “The Rules of Bureaucracy are mutable, non-canonical, non-ordinal, and contradictory, except in the cases where they are not.”
Rule #1: “Document everything you do; if you didn’t write it down, it didn’t happen.”
Rule #2 [The Sixty Minutes Rule]: “Never do anything that would cause Ed Bradley, Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Steve Croft, Leslie Stahl, or even Andy Rooney to pursue you down a hallway with a camera crew.”
Rule #3: “Nothing Simple is Ever Easy”
Rule #4: “It’s about the money; follow the money.”
Rule #5: “Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Rule #6: “Politics is the enemy of good government.”
Rule #7: “The biggest detriment to public service is the public.”
Rule #8: “The second biggest detriment to public service is the service.”
Rule #9: “There’s a reason; there’s ALWAYS a reason.”
Rule #10: “The Law is a harsh mistress: The rigorous and exacting application of which can benefit of society when used correctly to advance good policy and block bad, and be the bane of society when used incorrectly to advance bad policy and block good.”
Rule #11: “Public service often involves waking up in the morning, opening up the newspaper, and discovering that someone, somewhere out there thinks that you’re a dickhead.”
Rule #12: “No one really knows what you do.”
Rule #13 [Luke's Rule]: “No one ever acts like the bastard they really are.”
Rule #14: “Bureaucracy endures.”
Rule #15: “The longer you work in bureaucracy, the more Catch-22 resembles non-fiction.”
Rule #16: “Politicians are not smarter than you.”
Rule #18: “Money is not created equal.”
Rule #19: “Mediocrity is normalcy.”
Rule #17: “Within any bureaucratic structure, resources (e.g. people, money, knowledge, etc.) are not distributed uniformly.”
Rule #20: “Don’t assume a fiduciary liability without a committed resource allocation.”
Rule #21: “If you do your job and obey the law, they can’t reasonably fire you.”
Rule #22: “The Budget will always be wrong.”
Rule #23: “Always sign in blue.”
Rule #24: “A Bureaucrat must be able to explain and justify his/her actions to laymen without resorting to the phrase ‘because the Rules say so.’”
Rule #25: “Never voluntarily relinquish control of an original document.”
Rule #26: “Sometimes you just have to say ‘Screw the rules’”
Rule #27: “Change sucks.”
Rule #28: “Sometimes the answer is ‘No.’”
Rule #29: “It is very easy to make difficult decisions when no one has a clue what’s going on.”
Rule #30: “If you hang around long enough, eventually you will become an expert in something.”
Rule #31: “Data, technology, and automatic processes can never completely supplant human interaction.”
Rule #32: “Cover thine own ass.”
Rule #33: “It’s not real until it has its own acronym.”
Rule #34: Coming Soon…

04.30.09

Proof of God?

Posted in Uncategorized at 19:12 by krikkert

Well, somebody certainly pulled off a very nice picture at least… ;-)

04.23.09

Utlendingsnemnda og asylpraksis.

Posted in Wearing the rantypants at 22:46 by krikkert

De siste dagene har det kommet frem at UNE har gitt oppholdstillatelser til barnefamilier med døtre som er i fare for FGM1. De mer innvandringsskeptiske partiene har kommet med innvendinger mot dette, og mener at dette er begynnelsen på et frislipp av innvandringsbegrensningene.

Debattanten VamPus oppsummerer saken slik:

Dagsavisen skriver at 50 somaliere og etiopiere har fått opphold i Norge fordi Utlendingsnemnda frykter at familiene vil omskjære døtrene om de returneres til hjemlandet.

Kan noen forklare en enkel sjel hva som er logikken bak at foreldre med jentebarn får opphold i Norge som premie fordi de antakeligvis vil kjønnslemleste egne barn?

Svaret er egentlig ganske enkelt. “Fordi det følger av våre internasjonale forpliktelser”. Etter norsk forvaltningspraksis skal det svært mye til for å skille barn fra foreldre2. Det er også oppstilt et vern om familiens enhet i EMKs artikkel 8.

Ellers er det jo en annen interessant sak i VG om FGM. Det hevdes at en etiopisk far “truet” UNE til å innvilge hans datters asyl ved å både snakke varmt om FGM samtidig som han direkte uttalte at de ville omskjære datteren dersom de måtte returnere til Etiopia. Dette virker ikke logisk. Jeg kan ikke se for meg en normal person som i et møte med myndighetene vil uttale noe sånt. Og siden UNEs dokumenter i saken er taushetsbelagte og unntatt offentlighet kan man jo lure litt på hvordan VG fikk tak i dem, og hvor riktige sitatene er.

I andre interessante saker som har dukket opp på feltet mitt har vi jo mitt eget parti som mener at UNE skal fratas uavhengigheten sin. Kjære hr. Høie, hvorfor skal en av de grunnleggende menneskerettigheter det er å søke om beskyttelse i et land underlegges politisk styring? Hvorfor skal opphold i kongeriket være avhengig av hva meningsmålingene i går sa? Jeg ser det for meg, skal retten til dagpenger være avhengig av meningsmålinger blir det baluba i regjeringskvartalet tre ganger i måneden…

Det er også en aldri så liten faktafeil i VGs artikkel: Departementet3 kan beslutte at søksmål skal anlegges for domstolene for å prøve om vedtaket er gyldig, jf utlendingslovens § 38a sjette ledd. Hvorfor er dette en uakseptabel måte å overprøve UNE på? For lite politisk gevinst?

Dersom man ønsker å innskrenke innvandringseffekten finnes det bedre måter å gjøre dette på. Nøkkelelementer her er, slik jeg ser det:

  • Bli kvitt restansene i utlendingsforvaltningen. Saksbehandlingstid i en ordinær asylsak var i snitt 9 måneder i UDI og 10 måneder i UNE i fjor. Av dette brukes godt og vel åtte og en halv måned på å behandle saker som ligger foran i køen. Det kom 15 000 asylsøkere i fjor og det ble kun fattet 7 000 vedtak. Det vil si at UDI kommer til å bruke hele året i år på å fatte vedtak på de som kom i fjor.
  • Sett dem til noe meningsfylt å gjøre mens de er her. De som er lykkejegere er ikke interessert i lovlig arbeid, og heller ikke permanent opphold. De vil at saken skal vare så lenge som mulig slik at de kan tjene mest mulig penger (svart, siden man tjener bedre), altså trenerer de saken så lenge som mulig. De som faktisk har et behov for beskyttelse er snarere interessert i å hjelpe utlendingsforvaltningen. Økonomisk sett er det bedre at de jobber og betaler skatt (mindre belastning mens saken behandles), sosialt sett er det en bedre start på integreringen, og psykisk sett er det bedre å ha arbeid enn å sitte tiltaksløs på rumpa hele dagen.
  • Større bruk av utlendingsinternat, jf utlendingsloven § 41a med forskrifter. Endelig avslag bør i større grad kunne iverksettes i løpet av kort tid.
  • Større grad av samarbeid mellom utlendingsforvaltningen og øvrige offentlige etater; særlig Skatteetaten. For arbeidsgivere er det et nylig utstedt skattekort som fungerer som arbeidstillatelse, ikke noe dokument.

Det finnes få fasitsvar på akkurat hvilke momenter som skal føre til opphold i riket og hvilke som ikke skal gjøre det. Men i enkeltsaker tror jeg faktisk UDIs og UNEs saksbehandlere og nemndledere er flinkere til å vurdere menneskelige hensyn enn politikere.

  1. Female Genital Mutilation, altså kvinnelig kjønnslemlestelse [↩]
  2. Se bare på barnevernspraksis [↩]
  3. Arbeids- og Inkluderingsdepartementet [↩]

08.11.08

Vacation writeup!

Posted in Life, Vacation, Wife at 15:57 by krikkert

So, basically most of last week was this year’s vacation for me. So, here’s krikkert’s post-vacation writeup.

Day 1: Monday, August 4th.
This day didn’t start off too well, what with having to get up at 6AM to show up for work. I can’t afford snacking off from too many paid hours (what with not having paid leave…), so it was decided that I’d work a half-day this day. Thus, I worked from 6:30 to 11 o’clock. Cue my boss being late to relieve me. Grr. With the boss finally there, it was a race against the clock to reach pick-up so I could drop by the flat for a last overview1. Then, in a succession so rapid the Romans didn’t have anything on us, I picked up my lovely wife, she inspected the flat (A+!), we picked up her new driver’s licence from the DMV (Bastards wouldn’t simply let me pick it up at the post office, nooo, she had to show up in person…), and shot off for the first stop on Christer And Kat’s Grand Vacation of 2008! Namely … My parents. Cue dread. ;-)

According to our schedule, we were supposed to stay for half an hour to an hour-ish at my parents’. This was severely broken by several magnitudes. We arrived at around three-ish, and thought we’d get a move on by four. Instead, I don’t think we managed to leave before around seven. The blame was duly apportioned in my direction, and we shot off, again, for the Lost City of the Mustaches2. We managed about oh, an hour before an SMS ticked in on Kat’s phone, wondering whether or not we could drop by Lillehammer. Indeed we could, so a detour was made. Once there, we had to be telephonically guided to our destination, before conversation and hugging could ensue. After said hugging had ensued, off we went again.

A bit past midnight, including one change of drivers (and one seriously distrustful Christer clawing his way into the passenger seat by way of buttcheeks), we arrived. We were supposed to be camping, but the hour was late, so we were kindly allowed the use of the Devil Monster Doom Sofa of Ikea. After firing up the gifts for the natives3, and playing a wee bit of Dark Age of Camelot (quite the fun game, once you understand the principles). Then we bedded down for sleep.

Day 2: Tuesday, August 5th.
Day 2 started off with serious oversleeping. Alarm clock duly ignored, of course. Pretty much thrown in the shower, and then we set out to see the sights. We invaded the town, went shopping, and calibrated my clothes-dar. Apparently I need to get certified to pick out clothes Kat could wear. Got a couple of shirts and a nice pair of trousers for me, and a few things for her. Afterwards, we popped around to the Nidaros Cathedral for Olavsfestdagene (Feast Days in Honour of St. Olav). We even got to climb one of the towers (on the picture on the linked site, it is the tall tower in the middle of the building on the left). 40 metres above ground, 171 steps. Christer, of course, is deathly afraid of heights. It worked pretty well, all in all, once my brain wrapped itself around the idea that it wasn’t going to randomly crash into the ground head-first. There were also visits to Outland (fantasy bookshop) to garner presents so as to curry favour with the natives, and buying dinner on our way home. There were tacos.

Once we returned, I started setting up the tent. Was pretty fun, doing something physical for a change4, until the hosts informed me that it was going to rain. Cue the question of when they were going to tell me, and the answer of When he’s done pumping up the air mattress. They’re evil. EVIL! Good thing the tent’s waterproof.

That’s it for Days 1 and 2. Days 3 and 4 with my wife — bless her — and I, and Days 5 to 7 with just me will be forthcoming shortly. :)

  1. Kat threatened that if I didn’t have it sparkly-clean, she’d go on vacation without me [↩]
  2. Lost here being wishful thinking from my side [↩]
  3. Frozen pizza (Grandiosa) and booze (Martini) [↩]
  4. Carrying the wife’s shopping does not count as physical. [↩]

07.20.08

As for the personal life

Posted in Education, Life, Roleplay at 15:56 by krikkert

Still waiting for my letter of admission to the UiO Faculty of Law. They’re apparently still working on my case!

Today’s been pretty fulfilling. I’ve done a full-home vacuuming and gone over with soap and water (I am very glad I have a small home). I’ve cleaned. And now I’m preparing a few notes before me and my wife — bless her — are off to our weekly roleplaying game. We’re currently playing the What Follows in Shadow adventure in the Wheel of Time RPG setting, and I angle to send the characters headlong into the Prophecies of the Dragon series of adventure later. Mwahahaha… They’re in for a RIDE!

I’m also pondering how to most easily deal with my forgetfulness. Will I remember to look up appointments in an appointment book? Gah, if only my memory hadn’t started to fail on me.

So, I wonder…

Posted in Wearing the rantypants at 15:48 by krikkert

There are people who claim that religion is nothing but bad, and seem to have as a core tenet that all religious people in general, and Catholics in specific, should be permanent apologists for past sins, as well that those of a moderate bent should be permanent apologists for the extremists who claim to belong to the same faith.

Therefore, I see fit to demand of everyone who’s ever known anyone who’s used anything created in a factory — that would be most of humanity — that they apologise profusely and immediately for creating the climate issues that they themselves (for the most part) now claim are going to be the end of us.

Personal responsibility. It’s just that. Personal. Now, one counter-argument to this can be the so-called ’sins of the father’ doctrine (ex. in Exodus 20:5; “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,”), which I’ve seen used as an argument in favour of the apologist view. Said doctrine, however, says nothing about Earthen relationships, as, going back to the Law of Moses, it is stated in that big book that sons shall not suffer for their fathers’ sins (Deuteronomy 24:16). Said doctrine is on the relationship between man and God, and basically means this: If a man turns away from God, and raises his children accordingly, the children will suffer for it, for they don’t know of God. But on Earth, each answers for himself alone.

This post produced by an annoying tendency to dislike people who believe they’re entitled to an apology from me personally for something my forefathers have done. I will answer for my crimes against mankind, but I refuse to answer for yours!

07.09.08

Wow, I haven’t posted here in ages.

Posted in Life at 00:08 by krikkert

Well, six months to be more exact. So, what’s gone on in Christer’s life for the last few months? Well, you’ll have to wonder a bit longer while I actually go and do a write-up of that. ;-)

11.11.07

I was about to post a ‘blog post.

Posted in Life at 00:41 by krikkert

Sadly, I’m busy helping my girlfriend look for work. So you guys will have to wait. Sorry!

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