Some Norwegian artists and politicians placed a $50,000 ad in the Washington Post yesterday (link). The group collected donations from 4,000 Norwegians that called on the Bush Administration to apologize for the war in Iraq and pay restitution. This of course ignores the fact that the US is ponying up about $80 billion to rebuild the country - which is about a third larger than the entire gov’t budget of Norway, and about 40% of Norway’s GNP.
Some notes on Norway:
Norway is a country in northern Europe with a population of 4.4 million.
Norway is one of the dominant nations in skiing, second only to Russia/Soviet Union in the amount of medals won in alpine skiing.
(link)"In 1940, the Germans occupied Norway. Norwegian newspapers and media were full of anti-Semitic propaganda and the Norwegian government was taken over by Nazis (Quisling). Two years later, in 1942, 750 Jews were deported to Auschwitz. Of these, only 25 survived. The remainder of the Norwegian Jewry managed to escape to Sweden, where they lived as refugees until the end of the war. Over 100 Jews served in the Free Norwegian Forces, mostly stationed in Britain. “
For comparison’s sake:
There are as many Norwegians in the world as there are Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals in the entire USA (link)
There are more 400,000 more Episcopalians in the USA than Norwegians in Norway.
There are about half as many in prison in the USA as there are Norwegians in Norway (2 m - op cit).
Ditto Americans of Norwegian ancestry (2.6 m).
Of course, the funding for the ad only came from 1/1000th the population of Norway. That equates to 294,000 people in the USA. Since each Norwegian kicked in an average of $12.50, if these 294,000 Americans each kicked in the same amount to buy an ad in a Norwegian paper telling Norway to “Shut the F*** Up and Mind It’s Own Business“, we could buy $3.68 m worth of ad space in VG, Norway’s largest newspaper with a circulation of 1.2 million (source)
