Free Republic

Staff at Vardø police station in northern Norway are exasperated for an unusual reason - they have too little to do.Vardø, an urban municipality with around 2,400 residents, lost its status as a separate police district during a recent reform, stripping it of responsibility for key tasks, newspaper VG reports.At the same time, crime in Vardø has been significantly reduced, leaving the remaining officers with a lot of empty time on their hands. A lack of funds for overtime pay means that evening duty is scarce, and so potential crimes are not being detected."At the present time we have too...

Police in Øksnes and Bø in Vesterålen, high up on Norway's northwest coast, have such equipment shortages that they have to call a taxi to respond to emergency calls.Area police have had their fleet of vehicles trimmed from two to one due to budget cuts, and have repeatedly had to ring a taxi when needing another car to respond to a call, NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) reports.The mayor is so exasperated that he is considering donating a kick-sled to the force for the winter."If we are to have mobile police in the municipality then we are going to have to pool...

Rumors abound concerning the placement of around 20 wolves along the Swedish border, from Elverum to Halden."For now they are only rumors but they will be investigated. If there is something to them we will crack down on it, as we will if there is any illegal hunting," Knut Normann Mælen of the Hedmark police told newspaper Østlendingen.Last weekend police received tips about an organized wolf hunt in Våler but an investigation of the area turned up no suspicious behavior."Recently we have been getting reports of people in the forest with weapons and we want to find out exactly what...

Speeding and driving dangerously was bad enough, but a flimsy excuse was more than traffic police could stand.Acting district leader of UP, Norway's highway patrol, Tor Ødegård, was shocked by the excuse he was given after stopping a man who was doing 113 kph (70 mph) in an 80 kph (50 mph) zone."The man complained that his windshield wipers weren't working and the only way he could get the rain to glance off the windshield was to maintain high speed," Ødegård told Trondheim newspaper Adresseavisen.Ødegård noticed the car was driving much faster than others."In the end he got stuck behind...

Norway has the least amount of police per capita in the Nordic region, and it would take 1,600 new jobs to reach Swedish levels, according to calculations by the Federation of Police Unions (PF).Sweden has one police officer for every 381 residents, Denmark one for 396. According to a new PF report Norway is a distant last with the needs of 438 citizens covered per officer.The real difference between Norway's police workload and that of their Swedish colleagues is even greater, with Norwegian officers using 685 man-years on evictions and similar cases, while Sweden has a separate entity for such...

Nearly wiped out in the 1800s, the purebreds' newer enemy is a century of inbreeding QUITAQUE - Pushing a button that activates a feed dispenser on a trailer behind his pickup, Danny Swepston summoned a sound that nearly disappeared from the plains 131 years ago: The thunder of bison hooves. "Here they come now out of those mesquite trees," said Swepston, who as a wildlife leader for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is responsible for these bison. A stampede it wasn't. Fewer than 60 of the fur-covered, humpbacked animals make up the last purebred examples of the Great Southern...

SAN DIEGO – For the first time in a while, voting in San Diego seemed to go smoothly. During Tuesday's balloting, there was no question of whether people remembered to fill in a bubble when writing in a name. There were no computer glitches to frustrate workers.The troubleshooters whom the San Diego County Registrar of Voters had standing by didn't have much to do."We have a whole troubleshooting hotline where people are sitting very quiet," said Registrar Mikel Haas, about a hour before voting concluded.Even a power outage in Mira Mesa didn't stop the vote scanners, which have back-up batteries....

A leading researcher on terrorism believes Norway and Sweden are the two safest countries in Europe. That may further boost tourism, which already is setting records in Norway this summer.The number of cruiseships coming to Norway, for example, is the highest ever, and it's probably no coincidence. Increasing numbers of foreign tourists are heading to Scandinavia because of terrorism fears elsewhere.Now Magnus Ranstorp, who is Swedish himself but considered one of the world's foremost experts on terrorism, has ranked those European countries believed to be most vulnerable to terrorist attack.Ranstorp, a professor at St Andrews University in Scotland, was asked...

An Iraqi refugee with residence permission in Norway married his own mother, in a desperate attempt to bring the rest of his family to the country. It worked, inititally, but now both he and his mother face two years in prison.The bizarre story, reported in newspaper Romerikes Blad, started to unfold last winter when local police began investigating the case, several years after the man first came to Norway as an asylum seeker.The man in question initially had been granted permanent residence permission in Norway for humanitarian reasons.He settled in Lillestrøm, northeast of Oslo, and then quickly filed an application...

DUMMIE ALERT! DUMMIE ALERT! ALL QUIET ON THE ANDYITE FRONT IN DUMMIELAND THE NIGHT OF THE 4th! ANDYITES OUT CELEBRATING THE 4th! OR WERE THEY? MUCH LOCK, DELETE, BAN, IN DUMMIELAND APPARENTLY WENT ON! ALAS NO ONE WATCHING THE ANT FARM LAST NIGHT! NO SCREEN CAPTURES! OR PERHAPS NOT!

DUMMIE ALERT! DUMMIE ALERT! DETERIORATION OF DUMMIELAND HOT TOPIC ON MALLOY! HEAD WARDEN "SKINNER" TO ADDRESS THE EROSION? TO PINPOINT THE PROBLEM? GREATAUNTOFTRIPLETS AN UNCLE? COMPARISON OF 2001 MEMBERS OF democraticunderground WITH 2005 DUMMIES SHOWS DISTURBING TREND! NEARLY ALL THE GOOD ONES GONE!

DUMMIE ALERT! DUMMIE ALERT! DYSFUNCTION! DISSONANCE! DISCOMBOBULATION! IN DUMMIELAND!

DUMMIE ALERT! DUMMIE ALERT! A HOT SUMMER! ANDYITES FEELING THE HEAT? SOME ALREADY ABSCONDED FROM THE KITCHEN?

DUMMIE ALERT! DUMMIE ALERT! HYPODENSE OR HYPOVASCULAR? OR PERHAPS HYPOTHERMIA? ANDYITES GETTING MEDICAL JARGON ALL MIXED UP! POSTING OF ORIGINAL DIAGNOSIS WOULD CLEAR UP! DIAGNOSIS THAT THE DUMMIE "FLYARM" HAD IN HER HANDS MAY 2nd! HAD RIGHT THERE IN HER OWN HANDS! HER VERY OWN HANDS!

DUMMIE ALERT! DUMMIE ALERT! A NEW DAY DAWNS! A NEW BEGINNING FOR THE ANDYITES? OR MORE OF THE SAME AS THE PAST 61 DAYS?

DUMMIE ALERT! DUMMIE ALERT! ANDYITES TRYING THE "SYMPATHY" ANGLE! AGAIN! WON'T WORK!

DUMMIE ALERT! DUMMIE ALERT! WHAT A WEEK IT WAS! WHITHER THIS COMING WEEK? WILL THREE SIMPLE QUESTIONS GET ANSWERED THIS WEEK?

DUMMIE ALERT! DUMMIE ALERT! ANDYITES IN DUMMIELAND TO GET NEW SPOKESMAN? THE OTHERS HAVING FLOPPED? THE OTHERS FAILING TO ANSWER 3 SIMPLE QUESTIONS?

DUMMIE ALERT! DUMMIE ALERT! DUMMIE ALERT! DOCUMENTS PROMISED BY DIRTY BEN STILL NOT POSTED! TWO DAYS LATE, AND COUNTING! RED ROUND ONE IN HOSPITAL, BUT DIRTY BEN AMBULATORY!

DUMMIE ALERT! DUMMIE ALERT! DIRTY BEN FALLS DOWN ON PROMISE! PROMISED TO RELEASE DOCUMENT YESTERDAY! DIDN'T DO IT! IMPERIAL RED ROUND ONE OSTENSIBLY IN HOSPITAL, BUT NO EXCUSE FOR DIRTY BEN, NOT OSTENSIBLY IN HOSPITAL!