Why peace in the Middle-East have better chance now than in a long time… It is my belief that the element needed to realize peace in the Middle-East is a strong enough desire by the sitting US President to make it come through.

We have now come to a time where it is more important than ever for President George W. Bush to show results in his foreign policy and the war on terror. The European community, including Great Britain, has put a strong pressure on Mr. Bush to put the needed pressure on Israel to get the occupation of Palestine resolved in a peaceful manner. Getting this resolved would give the President a lot of good-will domestically and abroad. The President that resolved the Middle-East conflict will most certainly go down as one of the best presidents ever in the history books.

No sitting President that wants to be re-elected would dear go against the US Jewish lobby. It is my understanding that the Jewish lobby is so strong in American politics that it would be almost impossible for a President to be elected with the Jewish lobby against him. The foremost goal of the Jewish lobby is to see a strong Israel; hence they will always be on Israel’s side in any conflict. This is causing Presidents sitting in their first period to be very careful about how they deal with Israel. I would suppose that Israel knows how to use this to be able to keep the US in line with what they find to be in their best interest. President Bush can worry less about the Jewish lobby in this term, as he is not able to be re-elected after his second term.

The decease of President Arafat has taken away some of the “excuse” that Mr. Bush had for not directly involving himself in negotiations between Palestine and Israel. The newly elected President Mahmoud Abbas is a much more acceptable party to negotiate with.

All we can do now is cross our fingers and hope that President Bush will is strong enough and that Foreign Minister Dr. Condoleezza Rice is smart enough for the job. Rumors has it that she is not the person to underestimate; yet most people are likely to do so solely based on her achievements as adviser for the President in his first term.
 

  i95.5FM - Tower of Strength Carnival in Trinidad is coming up very soon. As I met my wife in Trinidad in the carnival season of 99, I have a very strong feeling for the Trinidad carnival. This carnival is rated to the 2nd in the world, after Rio de Janeiro. On i95.5FM - Tower of Strength, you can tune in to all the Soca and Calypso for this year Carnival 2005.

If you want to learn more about Trinidad and Tobago in general, take a look at www.trinidad-tobago.net, which is I site that I have created with friends from and of Trinidad and Tobago. 

  GeorgeWBush.com - Not available abroad I guess that many Americans can't understand why the rest of the world would much rather want Kerry as the next president. I believe that his claim to be more open to dialog with the rest of the world is one of the most important elements in this. It does not help that the Bush campaign has closed the site http://georgewbush.com/ for the rest of the world.  

  Do we, the Norwegian people, want Bush or Kerry to win the election? If someone had asked me that, two weeks ago, I would claim that a strong majority of the Norwegian people would say Kerry. But now, I am not so sure. The main reason for that is how Bush has been portrayed in the Norwegian media and the fact that Kerry is claiming that he is much more open to an international dialog when addressing international issues like terrorism. One should never forget the fact that Norway believed the invasion of Iraq to be against international law, but there is a general understanding that Iraq can not be left to itself in its current state. We feel that the ‘occupying force’ is responsible for restoring a peaceful and normalized situation in Iraq, and that the UN and a broader multinational set of forces is needed for achieving that.

I didn’t understand how colored the Norwegian media really was until a week ago. Kerry has been portrayed as the smart thinker that can come to the best result through dialog and Bush has been portrayed as an underachiever misled by the “hawks”. Maybe the media has understood it itself how it was reporting news about the US and started a more neutral report of the election or maybe it is due to a change in Norwegian politics.

The Norwegian media tends to report news in a critical manner, often aligned with the opposition, regardless of the ruling parties in Norway.

The 3 leftwing opposition parties has over the last few weeks been able to present a realistic alternative to the center and center-right governments we have seen for a majority of the last decade. This has resulted in the media being somewhat more neutral when reporting from the Norwegian scene as well. 

  Summer vacation in Denmark and Sweden We went on a summer vacation to Denmark by car this summer. On the way to Denmark, we stopped by my friend Jan, near Malmö in Sweden, to spend a couple of days. We rented a cabin in north of Ålborg in Denmark. This was our base for seeing attractions in Nord-Jylland and going to some of the beaches. On the way back we visited Legoland for two days and spent the last night in Copenhagen, before driving back to Oslo through Sweden. You can see all the pictures on my wifes homepage. 

  Move towards cannabis as medicine Cigarettes are on a strong trend to be completely banned and cannabis is finally getting more accepted. Many would claim that cannabis been socially accepted for a long time, but it is only recently where governments are starting to open up to the fact that cannabis is no “all evil”.

I wonder what would happen first: Cigarettes being totally banned or cannabis being legalized?