Long Burn

Pandemonium in the pressroom

One of my students has a part time job as a computer consultant for the main Copenhagen newspaper. Today he came in to report pandemonium in the pressroom. An election has been announced in Denmark and the reporters are in a frenzy, and suspect their computers are acting up just before it is time to put the final copy to bed. Carsten was up all night reassuring them that their programs are still working normally. As an American the elections here seem a little bizarre (and the weird part is that that means I consider an American election to be normal). A government is formed by a vote in the parliament, and then they set to work, with the condition that within a certain length of time (3 or 4 years), they must call a new national election. And they can call it any time really, and then when they do, it is with a three week deadline. So the opposition has been sitting on their election-time schemes waiting for this one three-week window of opportunity. Beats 1.5 year campaign any day.

posted by Matt_J @ 1:25 PM