handschuhschneebalwerfer asks: Hi, I am going to be in Iceland for a day in July, and was wondering if, since you had recently an excursion there, you would have suggestions of a good way to spend one day in Iceland?
» SFB says: Stay in Reykjavik. It’s perfectly sized for a day visit and gives you enough flavor for the country that you won’t feel like you shortchanged yourself by not leaving the city. Mt. Esja is in the distance. Nearly everyone speaks English fluently, so you won’t feel completely lost if you don’t know Icelandic and just want to spend the day walking through the shops. (One thing you’ll notice: There are very few international retail chains. The only one I can recall is KFC/Taco Bell. No Starbucks or McDonald’s, which might weird you out for a second. But really, it’s refreshing.) There’s a church tower in the city, Hallgrímskirkja, that has an amazing view if you pay the 600 Icelandic Krona to go up to the top. And there’s a pretty cool walking tour that’s totally free and doesn’t take too long. (If you’re not a city person, I hear the Blue Lagoon is pretty rad too.) — Ernie @ SFB
On Saturday, Iceland held national parliamentary elections and the newly-formed Pirate Party of Iceland won 5.1 percent of the vote. This earned the party three seats in parliament, making the new Píratar the most successful Pirate Party in any national legislative body around the globe.
Iceland’s unicameral parliament, known in Icelandic as the Alþing (“All-thing”), has just 63 members to represent the country’s 320,000 people.
Iceland has a really interesting recent political history, including complete financial upheaval, unsuccessful efforts at a crowdsourced constitution, and Reykjavik’s mayor, Jon Gnarr, a comedian running on a comedy platform who has managed to stay in power longer than seven of his predecessors. Gnarr actually ran for parliament as part of the upstart Bright Future party, and the party that actually did pretty well in yesterday’s elections, winning six seats. However, the center-right Independence Party, which was behind the financial implosion, won the election Saturday, gaining 26.7 percent of the vote. But the Pirate Party’s appearance on the national stage couldn’t have come at a better time—The Pirate Bay, perhaps the purest representation of the party’s ideals, just moved to Iceland.
But maybe you don’t care about all that and just want to see pretty pictures.
We have so many experts from educationalists to the police and those who work with children behind this, that this has become much broader than party politics. At the moment, we are looking at the best technical ways to achieve this. But surely if we can send a man to the moon, we must be able to tackle porn on the Internet.Halla Gunnarsdottir, adviser to Icelandic interior minister Ogmundur Jonasson • Discussing Jonasson’s proposal to ban online porn in the country, arguing from the angle that it would lower violent crime. While some sites are writing about this as if it has a chance of actually going through, an actual Icelandic politician with internet-related chops, Wikileaks spokesperson and Icelandic Parliament member Birgitta Jonsdottir, calls Gunnarsdottir’s stance “unaware how the internet works” and says “the possibility that this bill will pass through the parliament is near zero.”
Drunk Icelandair Passenger Strapped to Seat With Tape & Zip Ties
I recently traveled to Iceland, and I gotta say … I’m so glad this didn’t happen on my flight.
I’ve been in Iceland this weekend with my wonderful fiancée Cat, and today we spent the day hiking in a trail outside of Hveragerði. My feet are in massive pain from the 10 miles I walked today, but as you’ll see above, we got some great photos. (Thanks, BTW, to Chris Tognotti, Seth Millstein and Scott Craft for keeping things moving in my absence.) — Ernie @ SFB
(Source: photoset.com)
Your doctor may have to give you the go-ahead if you want to keep up the habit. Officials are hoping to do this as an effort to get people to quit. Recently, they’ve raised taxes on cigarettes and they’re on the way to banning them in many public places. Under the proposal, smokers would have to go through treatment programs to try to kick their habit. If they couldn’t pull it off, they’d get prescribed cigarettes. This seems like a bit far to reach, if you ask us, and it could create a black market because it’s so restrictive. Regardless, it should help people quit, should this measure pass —because that’s a lot of trouble to go through for a smoke. (photo via Flickr user mamagrrl) source
How badly does Ryanair want to fly in this mess? Well, the ultra-cheap airline, which is trying to argue that the air plume from the Iceland volcano isn’t that bad, just sent a test plane through the thickest part of the plume for an hour. To put it simply, the plane got through OK, which means that now RyanAir is really arguing that officials allow airlines to fly their passenger planes through this murky soup. Look, we know your entire business model relies on tight profit margins, Ryanair, but is this really how you want to save money? (amazing eruption photo via NASA Goddard Photo and Video’s Flickr page) source
Surfer Keith Malloy heading toward the river mouth of Iceland’s Vatnajokull glacier, by Chris Burkard
Wow, was this shot today? The article isn’t very specific about this fact. If so, that’s incredibly good timing on the photographer’s part, beyond being merely astute editing on NatGeo’s part (considering the volcano). (EDIT: Granted, this glacier is friggin’ huge.)
The first picture of the plume rising above @grimsvotn volcano in Vatnajokull. Image from Hotel Nupur via @hjortur
Despite how messy that looks, reports suggest that it will not have a serious effect on the atmosphere like the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokul volcano did last year.
People are always donating some organ after they died. It’s no more remarkable to donate a penis than it is to donate an organ like a kidney. He liked to be in the limelight, you know? He was a funny guy. He was a boaster, a braggart… he liked to be provocative.Sigurdur Hjartarson, head of the Phallological Museum in Iceland • Talking about his latest acquisition, the penis of the late Pall Arason, a 95-year-old Icelandic man who had agreed to the donation. He penis was pickled for preservation following his death, and despite the museum having had similar pledges from other people throughout the years, Arason’s phallus is now the first and only successfully donated human specimen at the museum. Of course, you go for the human penis, but you stay for the 67-inch sperm whale penis. source (via • follow)
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