Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.10.2017, Qupperneq 4

The Top
Stories
Sept 29TH – Oct 6TH
Words: Paul Fontaine
NEWS IN BRIEF So let’s get the
Election 2017 stuff out of the
way, first of all. The latest polls
to come in show the right wing
in Iceland is splintering apart.
There are now five parties—six,
if you count the decidedly centrist
Bright Future—running on right
wing platforms for parliament.
The biggest surprise was that the
party of former Prime Minister
Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson is
not only polling well, but it’s poll-
ing better than the Progressive
Party, the party Sigmundur used
to chair. The Independence Party is
also losing support, while the Peo-
ple’s Party is gaining ground, and
both the Reform Party and Bright
Future aren’t polling well enough to
win a seat. Elections are due to be
held October 28, which is like a year
from now in political time.
The Lækjargata statue of danish king
Christian IX handing Icelanders their
first and current constitution in 1874.
It has been amended five times since
then.
In related news, a new poll shows
that the dreams of post-crash
Iceland have not been forgotten,
as most Icelanders want a new
constitution this coming parlia-
mentary term. The drive to draft
a new constitution, often erro-
neously reported as having been
“crowdsourced,” was one of the
larger aims of the movement that
brought down Iceland’s govern-
ment in 2009, but the draft would
end up dying in committee shortly
thereafter. Support was greatest
amongst leftist voters, but a left
wing government would be no
guarantee; after all, the consti-
tutional draft died while a leftist
government was in power. Who
knows, though... maybe this time?
The scene at ISNIC, yesterday
The ongoing saga of neo-Nazi site
DailyStormer has come to a close,
as the site has now lost its .is do-
main due to violating terms of
service. Specifically, anyone regis-
tering a .is site must provide proof
of identity and physical location—
something site founder Andrew
Anglin was not willing to do, out
of fear this information would end
up in the hands of law enforce-
ment, which it likely would. Good
riddance to bad garbage.
Search and rescue squad saving the
sheep - photo by Björgunarsveitin
Jökull
Climate change continues to have
an impact on Iceland, as it does on
the rest of the world. Flooding in
east Iceland went on for the bet-
ter part of a week, as heavy rains
pounded the southeast corner of
the country, closing roads and
endangering livestock. No inju-
ries or deaths were reported, but
it has proven an infrastructural
nightmare.
We're proud to submit this brain donor
to this years Darwin Awards - photo by
Sunna Lind
It feels silly to even have to write
this, but please be careful when
trying to take a photograph of
Icelandic nature. Recently, a
tourist was spotted climbing down
the cliffs overlooking Gullfoss in
the hopes of snapping that perfect
pic. Seriously, don’t do this. Stay
inside the demarcated safe areas
around our sites of natural won-
der. We know what we’re talking
about, and we don’t want to deploy
rescue squad workers to fish your
bloated corpse out of the river.
4The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 18 — 2017
The potato is a metaphor for the new constitution, see
First
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