Posted on 02/05/2005 1:59:11 PM PST by franksolich
Rats spark garbage feud
Two Norwegian rats that allegedly hitched a ride across the border on a garbage truck to Kiruna have sparked expense claims and disposal problems on both sides of the Norway-Sweden border.
All export of combustible trash from northern Norway to an incineration plant in Kiruna, Sweden has ceased and Norwegian trash is banned until the rat problem is solved.
None of the Norwegian trash exporters is willing to take the blame for having transported the vermin.
"I think the rats had a Tromsø accent," said the director of Hålogaland Ressursselskap in Narvik. The response was predictable.
"The rats surely have a Narvik accent," said the director of Tromsø's refuse treatment.
Both companies are suffering from the ban and can run up extra expenses of NOK 500,000 (USD 79,000) a month moving their garbage to alternative sites.
Each year about 30,000 tons of combustible waste crosses the border and creates central heating for Kiruna residents. Now Tromsø has to send its waste to Sortland, 410 kilometers away.
Both Narvik and Tromsø understand the need for Kiruna to ensure that their landfill is rat-free again, but in the meantime they are also charging the Kiruna plant for their extra costs.
The Swedes insist that the rats must have their origins in Norway, and hope to have the facility in Kiruna rat-free again by the first of March.
A female rat reaches sexual maturity at the age of three months and can have six to seven litters per year of six to 20 rats at a time.
Guess the Europeons don't love Kerry as much as he thought they did.
Democrats have invaded Norway and Sweden?
"Ping" for the "Norway ping list;" if anyone wishes to be on this ping list for news of our vigorous allies in the War against Terror, holler at me.
You know, I never paid attention to Norway--never gave Norway a minute's thought--until recently; but in ten days of doing this "Norway ping list," suddenly I am learning a great deal about Norway.
One of the members of the "Norway ping list" sent me a list of the medieval kings of Norway, which I printed out and gave to the local librarian, asking that she track down circa half a dozen biographies about any of them.
But from more-current events, I am beginning to suspect that while the Norwegians fear the Swedes, the Swedes actually fear the Norwegians more, as a lesser person fears a superior one. I am no psychologist, but this is the impression; Sweden has an inferiority complex about Norway.
You forgot the obligatory "Uff Da!".
Great profile, sir.
I feel a little awkward about using the Norwegian language, never having heard it before, and so no "opp da" here; it seems to much like a drum-roll.
I can sympathize. We have a similar rat problem here in the US.
You may hurt the feelings of Swedes all you want, Madam.
Just don't mess with the Norwegians, real and honorary ones.
You know, sir, while I have yet to meet an authentic Norwegian, I am rather more familiar with authentic Swedes. Those of Scandinavian descent here in Nebraska tend to be overwhelmingly Danish, but there are two tiny enclaves of Swedes here, in Stromsburg and Gothenburg.
When I was a small child, I lived in a town of 3,000, about ten miles east of Gothenburg. The two towns had an intense football rivalry, and the games were well-attended.
When I was about four years old, I inadvertently got mixed in with the marching band of Gothenburg; their team, predictably, was the "Swedes." Because I was who I was, I had somewhat more, uh, freedom to roam around.
So these gigantic teenagers (I was a small kid) were playing all of these Swedish songs, one assumes even the Swedish national anthem, the drums rolling and all that. Of course, I could not hear the music, but through bone conduction, "heard" it vibrating through the skeletal structure.
It was very peculiar, being among all of these loud, bombastic, warlike Swedes, and with the rolling of the drums, as I was acutely aware of history even at that young age, the mind conjured up all of these images of men with horns growing out of their heads, burning ships, women with upper-shelves far too protuberant, and the Swedes laying waste to peaceful, green, serene, pastoral England, bringing with them nothing but destruction and death.
Swedes don't like the Norwegians and envy their oil.
Norwegians have no particular reason to like the Swedes either, as the Swedes played host to the Nazis while the Nazis invaded Norway.
uff da!
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