E-POST
Denmark is full of rules. One of the latest has a deadline of tomorrow, 1 November. By that date every business and society (technically, every entity that has a so-called CVR number) must have set up an electronic postbox, so that officialdom can communicate with it without having to send any paper.
In principle that is a sensible idea. Instead of sending out a million letters, the tax authorities can (eg) remind taxpayers of a payment deadline by sending them all an electronic message at the press of a button. However, good ideas are often not quite so sensible in practice. The big problem with the electronic postbox is not its operation, but setting it up.
Each postbox needs an administrator, responsible for maintaining it and letting others use it. Since my company involves just me, that is not such a burden. The difficulty is the security surrounding that administrator's codes and passwords. This involves a fiendishly complicated set of to and fro's between my computer (checked by the authorities from a distance that it satisfies the necessary technical requirements) and the new e-post website, followed by the sending of key files, access codes, installation codes, and other similar stuff. At one point, I gave up trying to get the system to work and rang the helpline. After starting at number 32 in the queue, I finally got to a recorded voice who kindly sent me in the direction of the website where I had been for the past two hours.
After a full morning, I did finally manage to establish an e-postbox. I can't say that I wait with baited breath to find out what eventually will pop into it, I am much keener to avoid the fines that would have occurred if I had not followed the rules. Which - thankfully - I have done.
Walter Blotscher
Thursday, 31 October 2013
Tuesday, 29 October 2013
BRIDGE (10)
The bridge season is going well. After winning the opening tournament at the club in September, we have now just won the second, a Butler tournament (for aficionados, that means a pairs tournament with teams scoring).
And on Sunday, we took part in the first round of the national pairs championship, which took place at our club. We won that as well, which means we go forward to the Fünen regional final.
As my partner said in the car this evening, we are beginning to get a good feel for what the other is thinking and doing. Since bridge is a partnership game, that's a very good development.
Walter Blotscher
The bridge season is going well. After winning the opening tournament at the club in September, we have now just won the second, a Butler tournament (for aficionados, that means a pairs tournament with teams scoring).
And on Sunday, we took part in the first round of the national pairs championship, which took place at our club. We won that as well, which means we go forward to the Fünen regional final.
As my partner said in the car this evening, we are beginning to get a good feel for what the other is thinking and doing. Since bridge is a partnership game, that's a very good development.
Walter Blotscher
Monday, 28 October 2013
A BIG STORM
A storm hit the U.K. yesterday, causing three deaths, extensive damage from falling trees, more than half a million houses without power, and chaos to the rail network. The storm has now reached Denmark and is casing havoc here. A wind speed of 54m/s has been recorded in southern Jutland, which beats the record set by the great storm of 1999.
Here at home, the ground is littered with branches. Two 20m high silver birches have come down in the garden, narrowly missing the cherry tree I planted two years ago. And some big trees have come down in the wood. We'll definitely have enough wood for the winter.
The only good news is that most of the leaves which covered the lawn over the weekend have been blown over the hedge and into the neighbouring field. Every cloud has a silver lining.
Walter Blotscher
A storm hit the U.K. yesterday, causing three deaths, extensive damage from falling trees, more than half a million houses without power, and chaos to the rail network. The storm has now reached Denmark and is casing havoc here. A wind speed of 54m/s has been recorded in southern Jutland, which beats the record set by the great storm of 1999.
Here at home, the ground is littered with branches. Two 20m high silver birches have come down in the garden, narrowly missing the cherry tree I planted two years ago. And some big trees have come down in the wood. We'll definitely have enough wood for the winter.
The only good news is that most of the leaves which covered the lawn over the weekend have been blown over the hedge and into the neighbouring field. Every cloud has a silver lining.
Walter Blotscher
Sunday, 27 October 2013
EDWARD SNOWDEN
Let's face it, the life of a whistleblower is not great. We all say that we want the benefits of what whistleblowers do, namely exposing the shenanigans of those who are in some way in power. But we also have short memories and a tendency to shrug our shoulders. What seems important today is less so in three months' time. Meanwhile, the whistleblower has to resurrect their life in a world where many people treat them as a pariah.
Against that background, the case of Edward Snowden is interesting, and not just because he managed to escape the clutches of an American Government hell-bent on locking him up for a very long period of time. True, he was fortunate in getting help from a Russian Government cynically taking advantage of the case for domestic and international political purposes. But what distinguishes him in my view is the sheer volume of documents he has apparently leaked to the Guardian and others.
We all know that spies spy. But the average citizen (including me) believes that there both is, and ought to be, a limit, either with respect to who is being spied on or with respect to the law of the land. The revelations about the U.S.'s tapping German Chancellor Angela Merkel's personal mobile phone and other things are for many people a clear crossing of that line. Germany is a firm ally of the U.S., and Ms. Merkel is hardly a terrorist suspect. If that is not enough to protect her from American snoopings, then what is?
All of which leads me to think that Mr. Snowden is doing all of us more of a service than we first thought. He is not just a disenchanted Government nerd, he really is doing all of mankind a favour. I hope that when all the fuss has died down, he does manage to be able to find a place to live where the Americans won't come after him.
Walter Blotscher
Let's face it, the life of a whistleblower is not great. We all say that we want the benefits of what whistleblowers do, namely exposing the shenanigans of those who are in some way in power. But we also have short memories and a tendency to shrug our shoulders. What seems important today is less so in three months' time. Meanwhile, the whistleblower has to resurrect their life in a world where many people treat them as a pariah.
Against that background, the case of Edward Snowden is interesting, and not just because he managed to escape the clutches of an American Government hell-bent on locking him up for a very long period of time. True, he was fortunate in getting help from a Russian Government cynically taking advantage of the case for domestic and international political purposes. But what distinguishes him in my view is the sheer volume of documents he has apparently leaked to the Guardian and others.
We all know that spies spy. But the average citizen (including me) believes that there both is, and ought to be, a limit, either with respect to who is being spied on or with respect to the law of the land. The revelations about the U.S.'s tapping German Chancellor Angela Merkel's personal mobile phone and other things are for many people a clear crossing of that line. Germany is a firm ally of the U.S., and Ms. Merkel is hardly a terrorist suspect. If that is not enough to protect her from American snoopings, then what is?
All of which leads me to think that Mr. Snowden is doing all of us more of a service than we first thought. He is not just a disenchanted Government nerd, he really is doing all of mankind a favour. I hope that when all the fuss has died down, he does manage to be able to find a place to live where the Americans won't come after him.
Walter Blotscher
Saturday, 26 October 2013
LOCAL ELECTIONS
Denmark woke up to a new landscape this morning, the sight of lots of serious faces staring down at the population from lampposts. There are local elections here next month, and today marks the start of the formal campaign.
Most countries' election campaigns involve posters of one form or another. What marks out Danish campaigns are that these posters are nearly always pictures of the candidates, with simply their name and party letter (A for Social Democrats, B for the Radicals, C for the Conservatives etc) plastered underneath. Midnight last night was the legal start time for the campaign, so party workers spent most of the night bagging the best spots (on a first come, first served basis) and shinning up lampposts. As soon as the elections have taken place, there is a fixed time limit during which they all have to be taken down again.
Academics have done research on whether all this activity in fact has an electoral effect. The answer is in national elections no, in local elections yes. In national elections there is so much other media coverage (notably television) that a local picture of, say, Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt has virtually zero influence on whether someone will vote for her or not. In local elections, on the other hand, the posters may well be the only way in which local people get to know who exactly is standing in their local area. This matters since election can be achieved either through personal or party votes; someone low down on the party list who would otherwise not be elected can, therefore, leapfrog up the list and be elected if they can harvest enough personal votes.
In some countries (the U.K., for instance) local elections are almost irrelevant, since local authorities have no real power. In Denmark they do, kommuner being able (for instance) to set the income tax rate. So knowing who is standing is important. Taking pretty pictures and shinning up lampposts is, therefore, worth doing.
Walter Blotscher
Denmark woke up to a new landscape this morning, the sight of lots of serious faces staring down at the population from lampposts. There are local elections here next month, and today marks the start of the formal campaign.
Most countries' election campaigns involve posters of one form or another. What marks out Danish campaigns are that these posters are nearly always pictures of the candidates, with simply their name and party letter (A for Social Democrats, B for the Radicals, C for the Conservatives etc) plastered underneath. Midnight last night was the legal start time for the campaign, so party workers spent most of the night bagging the best spots (on a first come, first served basis) and shinning up lampposts. As soon as the elections have taken place, there is a fixed time limit during which they all have to be taken down again.
Academics have done research on whether all this activity in fact has an electoral effect. The answer is in national elections no, in local elections yes. In national elections there is so much other media coverage (notably television) that a local picture of, say, Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt has virtually zero influence on whether someone will vote for her or not. In local elections, on the other hand, the posters may well be the only way in which local people get to know who exactly is standing in their local area. This matters since election can be achieved either through personal or party votes; someone low down on the party list who would otherwise not be elected can, therefore, leapfrog up the list and be elected if they can harvest enough personal votes.
In some countries (the U.K., for instance) local elections are almost irrelevant, since local authorities have no real power. In Denmark they do, kommuner being able (for instance) to set the income tax rate. So knowing who is standing is important. Taking pretty pictures and shinning up lampposts is, therefore, worth doing.
Walter Blotscher
Friday, 25 October 2013
ROYAL WORTH
The Crown Prince and Princess of Denmark are in Australia at the moment, attending the 50th anniversary celebrations of the opening of the famous Sydney Opera House (which was designed by the Danish architect Jørn Utzon). One of the reasons for sending them is that the Crown Princess, formerly Mary Donaldson, is herself an Australian, and hugely popular as the country's first and only ever royal.
While there, the couple will do the usual round of flying the flag and supporting Danish businesses. People are always questioning whether this sort of thing justifies the expense of having a royal family. In the case of Denmark and Australia, it does. Since she appeared on the horizon, Danish exports to Australia have doubled, not least because people there now know where Denmark is.
Walter Blotscher
The Crown Prince and Princess of Denmark are in Australia at the moment, attending the 50th anniversary celebrations of the opening of the famous Sydney Opera House (which was designed by the Danish architect Jørn Utzon). One of the reasons for sending them is that the Crown Princess, formerly Mary Donaldson, is herself an Australian, and hugely popular as the country's first and only ever royal.
While there, the couple will do the usual round of flying the flag and supporting Danish businesses. People are always questioning whether this sort of thing justifies the expense of having a royal family. In the case of Denmark and Australia, it does. Since she appeared on the horizon, Danish exports to Australia have doubled, not least because people there now know where Denmark is.
Walter Blotscher
Thursday, 24 October 2013
DRONES
Are drones legal under international law? In principle, they could be, if their targets were genuinely military ones. The problems are first, that not all those whom the U.S. considers to be genuine military targets would be classed by others as such. Secondly, and more seriously, drones are not precise enough that they can hit their targets without also hitting a lot of innocent civilians. Amnesty International's recent report on American drone attacks in the badlands of Northwest Pakistan concludes that a number of them could be classed as war crimes.
Given U.S power, that idea is unlikely to gain much traction (though it may well make disenchanted Pakistanis and others anti-American). However, as international law expands in the incremental, lowest-common-denominator way it has over the last 50 years, it is possible, if not probable, that binding rules will be developed to cover drone strikes. After all, they have for chemical weapons, and I can't see that drones are materially different in the way they affect non-combatants.
Walter Blotscher
Are drones legal under international law? In principle, they could be, if their targets were genuinely military ones. The problems are first, that not all those whom the U.S. considers to be genuine military targets would be classed by others as such. Secondly, and more seriously, drones are not precise enough that they can hit their targets without also hitting a lot of innocent civilians. Amnesty International's recent report on American drone attacks in the badlands of Northwest Pakistan concludes that a number of them could be classed as war crimes.
Given U.S power, that idea is unlikely to gain much traction (though it may well make disenchanted Pakistanis and others anti-American). However, as international law expands in the incremental, lowest-common-denominator way it has over the last 50 years, it is possible, if not probable, that binding rules will be developed to cover drone strikes. After all, they have for chemical weapons, and I can't see that drones are materially different in the way they affect non-combatants.
Walter Blotscher
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