Ping for the Norway ping list.
Posted on 03/10/2005 3:38:00 AM PST by franksolich
PM blasts IKEA
Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik is astonished by Swedish furniture giant IKEA's view of women and wants the company to start depicting women building furniture in their assembly instructions.
IKEA has about 2,000 products that need diagrammed instructions to assemble, and not one of these sheets shows a woman tackling the problem of putting Swedish flat-packed furniture together.
Bondevik calls IKEA's stance "untenable", and was unimpressed by the explanation offered.
"We have over 200 warehouses around the world and have to take cultural considerations into account. In Muslim countries there is a problem using women in instructions," IKEA's information chief Camilla Lindemann told newspaper VG.
"That's not good enough. Promoting attitudes of equality is at least as important in Muslim countries. They should just change this," Bondevik told VG.
The prime minister not only had support from Progress and Labor party politicians, who shared both his argument and his skepticism of the explanation.
Newspaper VG failed to find any Muslims who understood IKEA's policy. At an immigrant café in Oslo, Muslim men from various nations could not fathom the problem.
"Muslim women can also put furniture together," said Bajram Acar, who could not see how pictures of industrious women would offend customers in Turkey.
"It is not the case that there is Taliban rule in all Muslim countries. Islam is not the way it was in Afghanistan. Women can study, they can do anything," Fahrid Ismail of Jordan told VG.
For the record, many American women have commented that I am the only American male they know of, who actually reads instruction manuals.
But it is six of one thing, half a dozen of another thing, because instruction manuals usually omit one vital piece of information; there might be 16 steps to doing something, but such manuals outline only 15.
IKEA likes to do what cookbooks by celebrity chefs do...leave out something vital in the instructions so you can't replicate what you see in the store/resaturant!
Norway has their priorities in order,right?
Well, I am confused about Norway.
USUALLY they do. The Norwegian border guards are perhaps the most professional border guards around, always nabbing people up to no good. The Norwegian military forces were recently honored by George Bush for their actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Norwegian public steadfastly insists upon remaining Norwegian rather than joining the European "Union." Norwegian immigration authorities are rather vigorous and diligent about deporting enemy aliens.
The Norwegian governments since the mid-1970s have been socking away all oil revenues--not spending a kroner of them--for the future when ostensibly the North Sea oil is depleted.
It all makes sense; things that would warm the hearts of many here on Free Republic.
BUT THEN, on the other hand.....Norwegians appear to have a propensity for illicit, rather than licit, alcohol, even if poisonous (from the wily Portuguese), and a penchant for gambling even if they know in advance it is a scam (from the wily Australians).
The Norwegians tend to leave valuable works of "art" around, for someone to steal as easily and casually as picking up a box of cornflakes off the shelves of a grocery store.
One can get rather confused about the Norwegians.
Only if they are boxed up and included with the Kit.
Oh, wait, sorry. That was Clinton.
Photos of circus clowns and monkeys putting their products together with captions like
"IKEA FURNITURE IS SO EASY TO ASSEMBLE EVEN PRIME MINISTERS COULD DO IT"
If I ever win the Powerball lottery, one of the investments I would make is in opening an advertising agency, but as I am not a "people" person, I would need someone else to schmooze and schmalz and schniggle with the customers--which of course is 99% of the advertising business.
This Norway ping list--selling Norway to members of Free Republic--is experimental; Norway is a good, solid, worthwhile product, and if I can't sell Norway, then I can't sell anything.
The "figure" is sexless. The pudenda are indistinct, as are, of course, the non-existent legs!
This could be a bald man or a woman in a large babushka.
No one can tell what the sex is ~ this guy in Norway is a madman who should be locked up in a rubber room as soon as possible.
Despite that the current prime minister of Norway is on "our side," sir, there are plenty of Norwegians in Free Republic who agree with you, about him--they allege that despite his being on "our side," he reminds them too much of a recently-failed Democratic candidate for the presidency.
Last approval poll I remember, the honourable PM scored a whopping 5 percent. 5 percent. No kidding.
I assume those 5 percent primarily consists of his closest family, a few that escaped the lunatic asylums, polish "aquavita" smugglers, as well as a few saami's that didn't understand the poll question.
Cheers.
When are the next elections in Norway?
Either speculatively (assumed) or a set date.
Pretty sure they don't have any nude instruction sheets. (Better not give the Norwiegan PM any bright ideas...)
It's this fall. Around September, I believe.
Unfortunately, he is rather likely to be replaced by a crazy coalition of the social democrats, the socialist left (which is a wacky populist America-hating party), and the Farmers party(Wacky farmers, but thankfully opposed to the EU).
In foreign policy, probably not too much will change, albeit there will most likely be a slight shift in alignment towards "old Europe".
My hope, is for a coalition between the Progress party of Hagen and the Conservatives, but I feel that is rather unlikely at the moment. The ill-feeling against the PM and a few of his lackey's have tainted the Conservative party which his part oh his governing coalition.
The progress party has uptil now been a pariah, due to its views on immigration, the USA and Israel. Basically, they supported Sharon over Arafat, preferred Bush to Saddam Hussein, and want to restrict Islamic immigration. Oh, and they want to put polish aquavita smugglers out of business by lowering alcohol (and other taxation).
Cheers.
9/12 - election to parlament. At the momenet the polls show that the governing Christian Coalition will lose to the red/green alliance led by labour leader Jens Stoltenberg.
Sounds ominious, sir.
Norway joining the European "Union" is like a jockey jumping onto a dying horse.
And of those authentic Norwegians already on Free Republic, I have a sense they feel the same way I do, whenever going onto a Spanish-language or Russian-language web-site; intimidated, because of the language barrier.
No matter how well one knows a second language, he never knows it as well as he knows his first language.
And so I think many Norwegians are reluctant, hesitant, to post anything on Free Republic, because of their fears their "English" might not be "good enough."
If the lack of knowledge of "proper English" were a weakness, 67% of all Americans themselves would not even be able to lift a 4-pound weight.
And so I think the Norwegians on Free Republic should feel free to post, without worrying about their knowledge of the English language.....and the first person who criticizes their spelling or their grammar, well, I will take him and tie him to the back of a bison, just to see what happens.
That's a relif to hear! My spelling is not so god......
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