Archive for the ‘Newsbites’ Category

The magic of Google Analytics

Business, Health, Marketing, Media, Miscellaneous, Music, Newsbites, Offbeat, Society, Swedish Life, Technology: July 23rd, 2010 by VT

Sometimes older articles on The Local find new life weeks, months or even years after they are initially published when they are picked up by external sites.

Recent examples of this are a sudden spike in traffic of 8,000 readers on June 16th to Swedish parents keep 2-year-old’s gender secret, initially published nearly a year earlier on June 23rd, thanks to a pickup on i am bored.

More recently, on July 8th, Cracked.com cited our article Black Cobra gang steals selection of small cakes from March in a roundup of 5 bizarre real-life gangs, sending 4,700 readers our way to read about their exploits that merited the mention (they came in 3rd).

This week alone, we’ve seen a significant spike on Artists lose out as fans stop burning CDs and Cerebral palsy fraudster gets 3 years in jail thanks to Fark and Swedish women vote to keep their tops on thanks to reddit.

How can we narrow down the dates, numbers and sources of the traffic coming to our site? Google Analytics. We could spend hours tooling around to see where people are coming from to our site, but we would never get any work done.

We love to see where our stories end up on the Internet, so please feel free to share any articles (old or new) that amuse or enrage you from our site (using the buttons at the bottom of each story or elsewhere). And don’t forget to check out our new and improved Facebook page.

Swedish gender equality: in name only?

Miscellaneous, Newsbites, Opinion, Politics: April 9th, 2009 by CW

It’s not just Sweden’s party princess who answers to the name Madeleine anymore.

The battle between the Swedish Tax Authority (Skatteverket) and individuals who want to choose unconventional (or as Skatteverket likes to call it, “inappropriate”) names continues to rage, but this time it might just slay one of Sweden’s sacred cows: gender equality.

The Swedish administrative court of appeals has granted a 28-year-old Sandviken transexual, the right to be called Immanuel, overturning a decision by the Swedish Tax Agency that the male moniker was unsuitable for a woman. Jan-Olov Ågren, a male cross-dresser from northern Sweden, won a similar victory in his bid to go by the name Madeleine last November.

Good for the court of appeals, and let’s hope the Supreme Administrative Court upholds the rulings if Skatteverket appeals the decisions, as it confirmed it plans to do. While Skatteverket’s decisions to prevent people from changing their names to things like Dark Night or naming their children after fruit at least make some sense, the Tax Authority’s reticence to embrace unusual names in these particular cases flies in the face of Sweden’s extremely explicit dedication to gender equality.

Gender also comes into the picture when it comes to what parents call their kids. Last year, Skatteverket told a couple in Stockholm that they may not keep the name Elvis for their five-month old daughter on the grounds “that Elvis is a first name of a masculine type and as such may, in light of standard practice, be considered clearly inappropriate as a first name for a woman.” Just last week, Sveriges Radio reported that Skatteverket also ruled against a mother in Jönköping who wanted to name her six-month-old daughter David, claiming it was an unsuitable name for a girl.

How can this even be an issue in a country that castrates heraldic lions in the name of gender equality?

Expressen ‘reveals’ CIA spy story – really?

Media, Newsbites, Politics, Sweden abroad: June 28th, 2007 by JS

Now, I don’t usually think that bashing other media in Sweden, big or small, gets anyone very far, but just for the record I think it’s worth pointing out that Expressen.se is currently leading with a story that The Local was the first to break in Sweden yesterday.

The story, that US spies infiltrated the Swedish anti-Vietnam War movement, was revealed in newly declassified CIA documents. We know Expressen found it through us because Expressen’s reporter contacted our reporter, Paul O’Mahony, after seeing our story, to get a link to the document. Paul gave him the link.

When they published today, not only was there no reference to The Local (bad manners, but we’ll live), but the article was prefaced by the claim that ‘Expressen revealed’ the story. They have done their own interviews and gathered material, but their claim that they ‘revealed’ the story is inaccurate. As we know that they saw it on The Local first, it is more than inaccurate: it’s a deliberate untruth.

Sweden loses vodka fight

Newsbites, Politics: June 21st, 2007 by PO

Sweden was among a group of countries disappointed by the European Parliament’s decision not to limit the definition of what constitutes vodka.

The so-called “vodka belt” countries wanted to restrict the term to spirits made only from potatoes or grain.

But a majority of members voted in favour of a looser definition.

Vladimir Putin invites Swedish King to 2014 Winter Olympics

Newsbites, Politics, Sport: June 15th, 2007 by PO

Sweden’s King Karl XVI Gustav was in Moscow to meet President Putin on Thursday.

The King is reported to have been somewhat taken aback when Putin invited him to attend the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014, mainly because Russia hasn’t yet won the right to host the event:

“Well, that’s a long way off,” the king mumbled. “It is hard to get the Olympics. Sweden has tried for a long time to receive the right to host the Olympic Games, but so far without luck…”

American deejay calls basketball team ‘diaper-headed hos’

Miscellaneous, Newsbites, Offbeat: April 13th, 2007 by CW

According to an article on Thursday in newspaper Dagens Nyheter, American radio deejay Don Imus is in hot water after having made racist remarks on his MSNBC radio show ‘Imus in the Morning’. At an NCAA women’s basketball championship between the University of Tennessee and Rutgers University, Imus described Rutger’s team – mainly comprised of African Americans – as a bunch of “nappy-headed hos.”

Dagens Nyheter translated “nappy-headed” as “diaper-headed” (blöjhövdade), which would be a rather juvenile insult, but hardly worth the uproar it’s caused in the US (which has subsequently led to Imus being canned by NBC). While a “nappy” in British English would refer to something covering a baby’s bum, according to Merriam Webster, in American English it describes the “kinky” or “fuzzy” hair characteristic of black people. In the 1950s, it was used as a derogatory term.

Imus deserves to lose his job, and Dagens Nyheter ought to get a better dictionary.

Made in Sweden: Saddam Hussein’s bullet-proof windows

National, Newsbites, Offbeat: February 26th, 2007 by PO

Newspaper Borås Tidning revealed at the weekend that a Gothenburg firm was given the task in 1990 of supplying bullet-proof windows for one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Baghdad.

With Skanska responsible for the construction, the palace was to be an all Swedish affair.

A local army regiment in Borås was charged with testing the reinforced glass.

Heavy weapons were hauled in to a secret testing zone and the windows were pummeled with all manner of heavy ammunition.

Finally, in the autumn of 1990, the mixture of glass and plastic was deemed satisfactory and testing was completed.

Shortly after Iraq had invaded Kuwait, a team of fitters was sent to Baghdad to mount the bulky 6 x 4 metre panes.

But it was all in vain. The Gulf War broke out in January 1991 and the palace that Skanska built was bombed into a smouldering ruin.

The Swedish testers of Saddam Hussein’s bulletproof glass had made the same mistake as the dictator himself: they failed to factor in an aerial bombardment.

Good to be a woman in Borås

Newsbites, Offbeat: January 23rd, 2007 by PO

It has been statistically proven that the most average Swedish couple is likely to be made up of people called Lars and Anna Johansson.

And they probably live in Hallsberg, Sweden’s demographic mid-point.

But the town of Borås has another claim to fame.

Anna Johanssons in the western town have more orgasms (in Swedish) than women in any other Swedish town.

So maybe Lars Johansson isn’t so average after all.

Immigrants swarm to the beehives

Newsbites: January 23rd, 2007 by PO

Bee-keeping is not just a hobby. Oh no. In Blekinge in southern Sweden it has just become an integration tool.

Immigrants in the area are being encouraged to to mix with the local honey bunch and engage in some cross-cultural apiculture.

Laila Johansson, who teaches at a local adult education centre, is confident of the project’s success.

“We hope to get many people interested and we actually already have a little group of Arabs,” she said.

Jackasses from Luleå

Newsbites: December 14th, 2006 by PO

This video, made by a group of youngsters in Luleå, has incurred the wrath of local police.

“They are risking their lives, but it’s hard to stop them,” said local policeman Per Carlsson.

Watch them as they bungee jump from cranes and take dizzying dives from a sizeable suspension bridge.

NSD has the story.