Disappointed that it’s apparently July 11 rather than October 10

These other commenters are just saying “it’s algae” but the thing about that is that taxonomy is a fuck: brown algae such as kelp are classified in kingdom Chromista, so they are not plants by any taxonomic definition; however green and red algae such as nori^[1] are on the other hand both in Archaeplastida, or kingdom Plantae sensu lato. Green algae are more specifically in Viridiplantae, or kingdom Plantae sensu stricto — but neither green nor red algae are in Embryophyta, which is kingdom Plantae sensu strictissimo.

So basically, depending on how you define plant, either some seaweed is plants, or no seaweed is plants. At least as far as I understand it.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, Peace & Justice has in general been giving off some sussy vibes.

Maven’s comments on the DPRK have also been covered by NRK, VG, iNyheter, Klassekampen, and ABC Nyheter, potentially among others. I don’t really know what to make of their coverage. Nettavisen is the same publication that recently did some fucked up transphobic shit about a CSA case.

I guess I’m still formulating my attitudes towards Peace & Justice. The party has been exploding in popularity since their recent poster campaign (apropos, the party is reporting an influencer to the police for tearing down its posters), and I guess this sudden popularity and attention has shaken things up for the party. The youth wing was basically just founded right now and the party’s still formulating its views on different things. The party’s biggest donor was and foreseeably will remain a capitalist with business interests in Russia, known as Atle Berge.

I guess I’ll just have to keep my eyes peeled and see how this party develops as a political force, because for its small size the Norwegian news media has been obsessed with it. For now I guess all I have to say is to old Maven.

Edit: Oh, I was gonna mention — this Nettavisen article also included two embedded videos of like Peace & Justice’s appearance on Debatten with some commentary, but I didn’t bother translating those.

Funnily enough, Signed Norwegian^[1] actually does have a 1:1 syntactic correspondence with spoken Norwegian — but Norwegian Sign Language^[2], which is what this article is actually about and what I assume you’re really referring to as well, does not have the same grammar as Norwegian at all, exactly as you suspect. This is because Signed Norwegian is an artificially-constructed manually-coded language (MCL) primarily used for simcom, whereas Norwegian Sign Language is a naturally-evolved, living, bona fide sign language (SL) used by culturally Deaf people in their daily lives.

Some Deaf people in Norway have actually proposed renaming Norwegian Sign Language to norts — or potentially another name — taking inspiration from sign languages like Auslan and Libras, languages which have bucked the trend of simply calling themselves “[Country Adjective] Sign Language (Three-Letter Initialism)” and in so doing have asserted their own identities as unique, living, full languages unrelated to the majority spoken languages and not necessarily related to other sign languages. Some signers over in Seppoland tried to rename ASL to Ameslan back in the 1960s, too, but that effort never really went anywhere.

I think I’m starting to get why Hungarians don’t like “hungry” jokes…

Oh but can’t you see, Norwegian schools simply don’t have time to teach sign language, because they’re already too busy teaching Nynorsk to Bokmål users, Bokmål to Nynorsk users, and English to both!

That’s gross.

I strongly suspect this article is both padding for time and also written by somebody with only an extremely basic understanding of Deaf culture.

Machine learning based video recognition has a lot of potential uses for sign language, and machine translation of sign language is also a great thing to have… Yet at the same time, when I read about projects like this one (and machine translation of sign languages does have a long history, the earliest efforts date back to 1977!), I just can’t shake the feeling that the sort of app proposed by Uddin and Boletsis here is basically like the sign language equivalent to presenting self-driving cars as the solution to all traffic problems.

‘Cause you know how you get a ~100% accurate signed-spoken language translator, without forcing Deaf people to stare at a cartoon on an easily broken or lost doodad with a limited battery life, which may or may not require sending packets back and forth to a big ol’ data center with all the resources that takes to maintain…? — Well, by teaching hearing people sign language, too, of course!

And yeah, sure, that’s maybe a bit of a facetious way to phrase it, when learning a new language is such a laborious endeavor (I mean, how much sign do I know, right?) — but what I really just mean is that we should increase institutional support for sign language, instead of just telling Deaf people to “just use the damn app” and damned be any other accommodations like actual accredited interpreters. There is something to be said here about how Deaf people often “give birth to their own interpreters”, since 90% of children of Deaf adults are hearing but commonly grow up bilingual.

Norwegian fаg (subject, discipline, etc) is cognate with English fack (sense: rumen) and Fach (method of classifying opera singers’ voices), all from Proto-West Germanic *fak (division, compartment, period, interval), which is speculated to come from the PIE root *peh₂ǵ- (attach, fix, fasten) which also gives us words as diverse as fang, fast, propaganda, hapax and peace.

Å slutte (to end, stop, quit etc) from Low German sluten from Proto-Germanic *sleutaną (to bolt, lock, shut, close) which is where we get the word slot (sense: broad, flat wooden bar for securing a door or window) from. Believably from the PIE root *(s)kleh₁w- (hook, cross, peg; to close something) whence also words like close, clavicle, cloister and claustrophobia.

This being said, slutt datafаg is not really a normal way to say “graduate computer science”. To me it reads more like commanding someone to “quit computer science!”, more like dropping out than graduating, right? A more normal phrasing in my eyes might be, I dunno, å fullføre utdanningen sin i datafаg, “to complete one’s education in computer science”.

Sometimes you see a headline like this and you just have to stop for a moment and reflect on how mindboggling it is that genocidality could become so popular in a society. The fact is of course that this is the character of every genocide in history: genocides only happen if most people in a society passively or actively accept them. But when oneself is so far removed from that cultural context that enables this most horrible of crimes to happen, it becomes difficult to even fathom how a society could end up in a situation where one could meet ten people in the dominant group and find that nine of them want the marginalized group — largely children no less! — reduced to bags of nondescript red mush. Even the tenth person is probably still incredibly racist and a tacit supporter of genocide, just not an active supporter of it.

It feels cliché to mention how Zionist settlers are themselves to a pretty large extent descended from the survivors of pogroms and one of the worst genocides in human history, because the apparent irony of that is just not what makes the genocidality of so-called “Jewish” “Israelis” so horrifying, revolting, and tragic. People are not their great-grandparents, and Zionists, although they use Jewish aesthetics, are still a product of the cultural climate of Anglo settlerism and German volkism more than they are a product of anything Jewish. The Zionist settlers are, in a word, “not Jews”.

No, this is a human matter, not an ethnoreligious one. It’s a matter of me expecting to be able to look a member of my own species in the eyes and see a soul capable of empathy; all human beings are after all cousins if you go back far enough, and I would gladly welcome anyone as my own family. So even if people’s actions hurt others, I like to believe that people are largely just misguided and could be set on a better path, that people simply mean well but don’t always know how to do well.

But Zionists, in the way they talk, in the way they act, in the lack of any brightness in their eyes, there is just… no humanity left. Whatever humanity the Zionist settlers had was “left at the door” like shoes and coats when they decided to become settlers, and they’ll put their shoes and coats back on when the wretched, moribund system they benefit from finally collapses on them, which will be soon, God willing. And perhaps then, and only then, to paraphrase my own favorite ex-Zionist, ĉiu vidos en sia proksimulo nur homon kaj fraton.everyone will see in their neighbor only a man and a brother.

♫ Butt stuff, big knife; you were runnin’ fast all your life ♫

Yes, the app Xiaohongshu, also known as Rednote. Although originally aimed at people in China, the app saw a brief flash of popularity in Seppoland/USA after TikTok was banned.

The last, you say…

So, once again I’m left wondering… How much of this was intentional? Did the party go into this campaign knowing that people were going to vandalize the posters, and figured it was a good opportunity to present themselves as the cool underdogs getting censored? Did the party only ever intend to show their ads for a few days, just enough to cause a media frenzy, before they’d dramatically pull out and just so happen to save a bunch on advertising expenses? I would like to note that Peace & Justice’s official Facebook page apparently brags about how they’re the fourth most googled thing in Norway right now.

Hell, the typo in the ads, was that intentional too‽ Inquiring minds want to know! Deliberate typos are a tried and true strategy, after all!

There’s also the question of what exactly the media response to this is, in its character. I have after all noted that Aftenposten just two months ago ran an opinion piece by Glenn Diesen, the guy whose face is on these Peace & Justice ads, advocating his views on Ukraine, and I said back then, “Could this perhaps be a sign that Aftenposten is preparing for an eventual switch of editorial line on the Ukraine issue, from a hard pro-NATO to a NATO-critical stance?” — and if Peace & Justice’s Oslo Metro campaign was a PR stunt, then Aftenposten chose to fall for it. Whether Aftenposten’s decision to fall for such an obvious PR stunt was merely a short-sighted attempt to jump in on a click-cow, or an attempt to steer the narrative back towards NATO-ism when this anti-NATO-ist stunt became too loud to ignore; or whether Aftenposten’s coverage of these posters actually is part of a long-term plan to shift towards NATO-critical coverage of Ukraine… Well, we’ll just have to wait and see, but I am still struck by the emphasis throughout this article on how these ads shouldn’t be banned, and how we as a Good Liberal Democratic Society must let people express views like these. Although this line reinforces liberalism, the message is still that people shouldn’t be stopped from criticizing Norway’s support for Ukraine, which to me seems like a bit of a soft and roundabout way of saying that people should criticize Norway’s support for Ukraine more, right?

At the end of the day, in this era of shifting alliances, I’m not sure even the bourgeoisie knows what way it wants to go, and for us working people it’s far more inscrutable. But what we can take away from this is how a party can go from being an almost unheard of split from a major left-wing party, to being the fourth most googled term in an entire country, almost overnight, and that can be a very useful lesson for all revolutionaries indeed.

And also, Peace & Justice’s yapping about freedom of speech and democracy and debate makes them look like a bunch of fucking yahoos.

So there we have the answer to something I remarked on in my previous news translation earlier today: FOR is experiencing a DDoS attack (or maybe another kind of attack, but a DDoS seems most likely).

The website is working for me now, though. https://partiet-for.no/peace-and-justice-party/ for the English-language version of the site.

Some people — obviously not people who actually agree with the party — are suggesting a bit conspiratorially that the downtime was actually self-inflicted, basically another way for the party to attract attention to itself. I doubt this, because if there were people willing to tear down their posters, then there are people willing to DDoS them; but the fact remains that, yes, the site’s downtime has managed to attract even more attention to the party. I’m also struck by how this very short article is really pretty neutral about the Oslo Metro posters situation — could it be that as the party receives more coverage, that the constant cries of “Russian asset!” or “Trash party!” will become so tired that they hardly warrant a mention? I guess we’ll have to wait and see how things unfold.

Also, I made an embarrassingly sloppy mistake in my previous post, as I wrote 1.4 billion kroner instead of 1.4 million kroner, and even provided a currency conversion. This has been corrected now but I will need to be more careful about that sort of thing going forward. That wasn’t the first time I misread a word and translated it without thinking too hard. Going forward I might need to use a machine translation as reference.

I have been seeing news about this situation nonstop since the posters first went up. I’ve seen articles of people vandalizing these posters in support of their Heckin Ukrainerinos, half of every news article about the situation includes a quote from an Oslo city councillor (Conservative Party) calling Peace & Justice “trash” (søppel), some articles have pointed out that the ads include a typo (millliarder instead of milliarder, so basically billlion with three L’s) or anally fact-checked every word of the party’s leadership in a way that they just don’t do for other parties, and a whole bunch of news articles Strongly Imply that Peace & Justice is a Russian asset simply here to influence our wholesome chungus elections — because there is simply no way people could genuinely not support the campaign to turn Ukraine into a Western neocolony.

I will also note that Peace & Justice’s official website appears to be down today — I don’t know what the deal with that is, it could be coincidental, but I have to wonder if this might indicate some sort of DDoS attack or even just a “hug of death” due to all the attention the party has gotten from this campaign. At the end of the day, though, I have to wonder if Peace & Justice deliberately did this provocative campaign, and now refuses to say how they financed it, specifically to get themselves investigated and as a result way more air time than a party of their size would normally get. In which case the investigation will eventually reveal that the campaign was wholly legal, and Peace & Justice will have the last laugh.

Norwegian news media is as said and as expected leaning into the narrative that Peace & Justice is a Russian asset, but regardless of how the news is framing the party and its campaign, at least Peace & Justice has gotten the news to talk about them at all through this campaign so apparently ostentatious that it cannot be ignored. That’s more than can be said about really any other extraparliamentary party, so I think Peace & Justice might actually have a bright future ahead, especially as public opinion on Ukraine will slowly but surely eventually begin to shift. I want to remain skeptical of Peace & Justice, though, because ultimately my impression is that there really isn’t any “mainstream” leftist tradition in Norway that isn’t full of, as it were, goobers, and I’m for the time being assuming Peace & Justice is no different.

It seems highly unlikely.

atun-shei-my-nazi-roommate-heil-hitler.gif

I felt like I could’ve found better ways to phrase things to make it extra clear that this is just the party’s policy for what it will do if it comes to power — an individual policy point in its larger party platform — but I wrote the translation a bit hastily, maybe a bit tired, and I figured people would understand from context.

These are the lines where I used the word “policy” in the translation compared to the original Norwegian, with glosses, for reference:

Line 1

KrFCDP-vedtaketthe-decision omabout åto forbyforbid offentligepublic skolerschools åto flaggefly-a-flag medwith regnbueflaggrainbow-flag harhas fåttgotten nokenough ena milliardærbillionaire tilto åto sesee rødt.red.

→ The Christian Democratic Party’s new policy of banning public schools from hoisting rainbow flags has made yet another billionaire see red.

Line 2

UnderUndеr landsmøtetthe-national-congress gikkwent Kristelig FolkepartiChristian Democratic Party –— etterafter eta forslagproposal frafrom KrFUCDPY –— innin forfоr atthat offentligepublic skolerschools kunonly skalshall hahave lovpermission tilto åto flaggefly-a-flag medwith detthe norske,Norwegian, samiskeSámi ogand kvenskeKven flagget.the-flag.

→ During the national congress of the Christian Democratic Party, the party adopted a policy position suggested by its youth wing, to restrict public schools to only being allowed to fly the Norwegian, Sámi and Kven flags.

Line 3

UtspilletThe-move vekketawakened sterkestrong reaksjonerreactions politisk,politically, ogsåalso interntinternally iin KrF.CDP.

→ The policy has created strong political reactions even within the party.

Line 4

PartilederParty-leader DagDаg IngeIngе UlsteinUlstеin harhas iin etan tidligereearlier VG-intervjuVG-interview tidligerepreviously forsvartdefended vedtaket.the-decision.

→ The Christian Democratic Party’s leader, Dag Inge Ulstein, has defended the policy in a previous interview with VG.

Line 5

–— DetThe styggeugly medwith dennethis sakenthe-case eris atthat nårwhen KrFCDP fattertakes slikesuch vedtak,decisions, såthen girgives detthat legitimitetlegitimacy tilto demthem somwho mobberbully skeivequeer-PL påon skolene.the-schools.

→ —“What’s especially bad about this whole affair is that when the Christian Democrats adopt these sorts of policies, it legitimizes those who bully queer people at school. […]”

Line 6

KrFsCDP’s forslagproposal eris påon linjeline medwith denthe norskeNorwegian flaggpolitikkenthe-flag-policy somwhich detit varwas såas godtgood somas tverrpolitiskacross-the-political-spectrum enighetagreement omabout framforward tilto 20212021..

→ The Christian Democratic Party’s policy accords with our country’s former flag policy, which enjoyed consensus across more or less all political parties until 2021.