The Constitution Will Be Tweeted
The newest government in the world was designed with help from comments on the internet. God help us all.After Iceland’s economic collapse in 2008, the island nation decided it was time to write a new constitution, this one not based on its parent country of Denmark but rather made from the original ideas of its citizens.
Belchfire Runabout
This is Donald Duck's 1934 Belchfire Runabout. Apparently, someone in Iceland made a real-life replica of the cartoon car, which was modeled around the 1938 American Bantam. The replica is complete with the Runabout's 313 license plate and the "mother-in-law seat." In actuality, the car only has room for one person...
http://acidcow.com/pics/5323-donald-ducks-car-in-real-life-15-pics.htmlEspionage in Icelandic Parliament
An unauthorised computer, running encrypted software, was found hidden inside an unoccupied office in the Icelandic Parliament, connected to the internal network. Serial numbers had been removed and no fingerprints were found. The office had been used by substitute MPs from the Independence Party and The Movement, the Parliamentary group of Birgitta Jonsdottir, whose Twiiter account was recently subpoenaed by US authorities.
http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/01/21/0035221/Espionage-In-Icelandic-Parliament
Haven for Freedom of Speech
(download)
Iceland has a bold new international money-making plan. The country wants to turn itself into a haven for the digital age. "A haven for freedom of information, freedom of expression and of speech," says lawmaker Birgitta Jonsdottir. "What we are doing is putting together all the best laws so that one country can set the standard for how we in the future strengthen these rights." Iceland wants people from around the world to set up their servers there and publish material online without the fear of ruinous lawsuits or censorship. Icelanders see this as a noble aim and a business opportunity.
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/10/25/am-iceland-turns-from-banks-to-freedom-of-speech-/
Reykjavik's anarchist mayor takes office
A polar bear display for the zoo. Free towels at public swimming pools. A "drug-free Parliament by 2020." Iceland's Best Party, founded in December by a comedian, Jón Gnarr, to satirize his country's political system, ran a campaign that was one big joke. Last month, the Best Party emerged as the biggest winner in Reykjavik's elections, with 34.7 percent of the vote, and Mr Gnarr is now the fourth mayor in four years of a city that is home to more than a third of the island's 320,000 people. In his acceptance speech he tried to calm the fears of the other 65.3 percent. "No one has to be afraid of the Best Party," he said, "because it is the best party. If it wasn't, it would be called the Worst Party or the Bad Party. We would never work with a party like that." With his party having won 6 of the City Council's 15 seats, Mr Gnarr needed a coalition partner, but ruled out any party whose members had not seen all five seasons of "The Wire." A sandy-haired 43-year-old, Mr Gnarr is best known here for playing a television and film character named Georg Bjarnfredarson, a nasty, bald, middle-aged, Swedish-educated Marxist whose childhood was ruined by a militant feminist mother.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/world/europe/26iceland.html
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