If the rule of “better view = worse food” is true, we’re wondering just how bad the food would have to be to offset the view at “Svalbard Wildlife Restaurant,” a meal stop on one of taxing tours offered by a tour company founded by the same guy responsible for the rustic Gjesthuset 102.Of course, since there’s also a cliche about “hunger is the best seasoning” they might need to serve freeze-dried meals raw to fully compensate…

We try as folks pretending to be real journalists not to make ourselves the news and, despite what the photo to the right might suggest, we’re adhering to that this week since it’s others who are spooked and maybe putting a bounty on what appears to be a genetic clone of this fishwrapper’s editor (and by genetic we also mean accessories like the clothes, backpack an and computer). Morten Viking Sundby took the photo at 4:14 p.m. at the Oasen shopping center in Karmøy, but he “did not talk to him as I was kinda surprised and in a hurry.” But Sundby did post the photo on Longyearbyen’s community Facebook page, prompting reactions from mirth to terror to murderous rage. “What if there are more of them scattered all over the planet?” worried one commenter. “Unbelievable,” another wrote. “I think we should go get this guy. He has no right to steal our Mark. He should hang.” For the record, we’re offering a non-monetary reward for information leading to the identification of this very suspicious person or evidence that a cloning operation does indeed exist…
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is visiting Svalbard (and other foreign Arctic terrain) this week on yet another those frequent climate change junkets we tend to ignore, but this time our enquiring minds have a question we’re pretty sure other VIPs aren’t getting: At how many of those stops did panicked hosts ask you if Donald Trump really has a chance in hell of being the next president and do you have any idea what the hell he’ll do if elected? Considering His Hairness is telling his worshippers he’ll single-handedly send the Paris climate treaty into meltdown and sees no reason to thwart the ambitions of his pal Putin (of those strong leaders who’s “winning” compared to those losers in Mexico who will be paying for that wall), we obviously figure the potential impacts could been a boon for us as journalists, assuming we’re still free to publish uncensored after the election.