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Bergen in Norway fared even worse (Norwegian article).

As an added insult, Bergen is built around Vågen, and that and the harbor kind of defines Bergen.. It would be a bit like omitting the White House in Washington, or Statue of Liberty in NY.

The company was connected to the largest regional transport and buss service. 1.6 million NOK is about 230.000 dollars; not a lot, but quite a lot if you can save that expense in a year. And the higher the gas prices go the more you save. Unfortunately I couldn't find that particular story (was reported in a local paper I read when I visited my folks).

However I found a couple of other newsreports, including this one; it is in Norwegian but I'll do some rough translations.

Quote:
"The reduction is diesel consumption is on average above 5%, though for some drivers the reduction is above 10%. The number of gear changes is also reduced.

However the most surprising result is that the buses are arriving faster by altering their driving styles.
"We are not talking about a dramatic speed increase, but during our various test runs the average speed improved from 48 km/h to 50 km/h." Says Mjelde (department leader for Tide in Arna, Osterøy og Nordhordland.
"About ten million NOK a year can be saved if all drivers in Tide manage to reduce their consumption to the goal set by the corporate leadership."
QUOTE END

So from what I have read the drives don't take longer and the savings despite "nok isn't many $$$" is still a sum most companies (even US ones) would consider substantial.

As a Norwegian, I can only say that you are completely unaware of the things that go on in my home country. There are essentially two Norways, one internal and one external, and the external one is the one that's presented to tourists and the outside world.

For example, there was the case when the ruling and massive Labour party had written false "letters to the editor". Essentially, what they did was write things like 'I am a single mother and I hope for the sake of my three children that the opposition's policies will never be implemented because they would fill my life with so much pain. My youngest daughter cried when I told her what might happen'. Or, a bit more advanced, writing arguments that purport to be in favour of the opposition, but very poorly worded, and then they "refute" them in a reply with their own brilliance. Noone has ever been criticised, "fired" or in any way had their politics influenced by this, and it stayed in the (local only) media for all of a week.

Norwegian article: http://www.bt.no/lokalt/bergen/article393005.ece
Translated title: "Knows about false letters to the editor in the newspapers. Former Labour party member Audun Holme says he is aware that fictitious letters to the editor under the direction of the Labour party has reached the newspaper columns". Incidentally, this happened in Sweden as well, though there the secretary (who had done all of this independently and without anyone's knowledge, of course) just had to resign.

And oh, there was the case when the biggest newspaper and TV organisation (A-Pressen) in Norway was going to get a new chairperson, and a panel had been set down to judge between the selection of candidates according to how they scored on a set of formal criteria. The head of the panel had assessed one person as 'weak' or 'very weak' on four out of six criteria. Shortly after this, however, the Prime Minister (Jens Stoltenberg) and Foreign Minister (Jonas Gahr Støre) went on a private home visit to the head of the panel, and argued very warmly for the person in question, praising his personal qualities. They say they were simply going as private individuals to provide a personal character reference, of course.
http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/kommentarer/article2193377.ece

And oh, there was the case when the military and defense advisor of a supporting party to the ruling and massive labour party (incidentially, the Socialist Left), sat at a luxury restaurant in Oslo (the one where a full night costs ~$400 p.p. sans wine) and discussed airplanes. Effectively there is an ongoing evaluation of fighter airplanes in Norway, whereby the Eurofighter competes with the Joint Strike Fighter. This evaluation is supposed to be assessed by a strictly neutral objectives as to efficiency and performance. A journalist present however heard the politican in deep discussion with two advisors for the Swedish billionaire Wallenberg family, and the politician promised that, not only would the Swedish JAS Gripen airplanes also be considered, they had actually as much as won the contract already!

"I like this fucking bad!" is the headline, quoted. Some exchanges are,

Paper: We saw you at Statholdergaarden yesterday evening and wonder what you were doing there?
Advisor: (laughter) You see, I don't think I have any reason to say who I have dinner with.
Paper: No?
Advisor: Nei, do you think so? Who did you have dinner with last night?
Paper: A colleague.
Advisor: Oh yes. At the Statholdergaarden. Who paid for you?
Paper: We did ourselves.
Advisor: You did? You make that kind of money in Dagbladet ('the daily times')?
Paper: The question to you was, what were _you_ doing there?
Advisor: But dearie you, I really have no intention of telling you.
http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2007/08/30/510484.html

On the topic of European newspapers: there was a case written about in a local newspaper recently where;

- an opposition party accused the biggest ruling party of writing 'letters to the editor' under false names and personalities
- the ruling party denied this strongly
- an audit found the local paper had accepted at least six letters with false identity, in breach of the newspaper's own policy of checking names. These letters were all representing the ruling party's view.
- a week later a former active workgroup member of the ruling party stated that his workgroup used to both write letters for politicians who were poor at writing and used to write letters from false personalities, and also wrote letters purporting to represent opposition views but with poorly worded and offensive arguments, and then eloquent refutations to those. He said he would not be surprised if any of those letters was submitted to newspapers.
- the local current party leader said that he was surprised to hear this, although he could not say for certain that it had not happened

In some countries, this would be a Watergate type scandal and may have led to both criminal proceedings and the downfall of the party. In Norway, exactly zero of the national newspapers or TV channels have reported it. I should add that the formal code of ethics for Norwegian media editors explicitly states "The Editor shall preserve freedom of speech and to the best of their ability work towards what after his/her best opinion is to the greater good of society".

Link to the local paper for the interested, in Norwegian: http://www.bt.no/lokalt/bergen/article393005.ece

Here's a webcam view of the local railway station area.

1. I get several pieces of spam in Russian every day advertising these databases. Dammit.

2. Law enforcement in Russia does nothing about it. In the current situation, it is trivial to catch the seller: the databases advertised in spam, for example, are delivered by a courier. If the police were interested in hindering this activity (or forcing it deeper underground, at least), they would do this in a blink of the eye. Nothing is done, though.

3. I like the way Norway deals with this danger, partially at least. A lot of information in Norway is public, period. National and mobile operatiors phone directory is public (unless you specifically ask the mobile operator to withhold yor number from the listing) and searchable online. Summaries of tax amount, personal income and fortune by year are public for everybody, complete with mail addresses and year of birth (it used to be the full date of birth, but they have decided to limit it to the year recently). The tax database have been open for a good hundred of years, previously as paper records and now online. Only a handful of persons in the country can have their records hidden from the public view, usually those stalked by sex offenders (e.g. by former hisbands) and the like. Basic information on all companies and organizations is searchable online, too.

In fact, there was a story (never mind the text, it's in Norwegian - look at the picture) about this in our local newspaper this morning. A local landlord in the middle of the city hired a couple of graffers, as it's called in Norway, to paint the house. Started a rather heated debate here. This is his own property, but the city administration is discussing wether to enforce a repaint. There's a law somewhere that says that a given city's administration has the responsebility to keep the city look somewhat good. An interview with someone ine the city council revealed that some of its members didn't like the view..
So it's not just about property - it's about the general visual representation of the city. Me, I love it. It looks great! More graffiti!