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19. januar 2003
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Thong for Good Christian Women 
"This uncomfortable undergarment will be a daily reminder to unmarried women to find a husband and a emergency moral reminder to her would-be-suitor. (For use under traditional underwear only.)"
See the Objective: Ministries Online shop for more gems!
11:36:05 PM 
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God's existence, omni-everything, and nothing about big rocks
God is supposedly omniscient. That means God knows everything that has happened, is happening and will happen in all future.
Also, God is omnipotent. Then he can do anything. Nothing is beyond God's power (let's leave subtle contradictions like lifting big rocks out of this for now).
Now, if God knows everything that will happen tomorrow, then logically God is unable to do anything tomorrow, except what he already knew he would do. God cannot then change anything. God can make no plans, and do no action. If God does something he had not known in advance that he would do, then he was not omniscient in the first place.
So omniscience is necessarily logically inconsistent with omnipotence. An omniscient being is actually im-potent in every respect.
Lastly, let me address a typical "rebuttal": Well, God could know everything if he checked, but for some issues, he decides not to. That is, they say, God decided to not check in advance whether Adam and Eve would sin (as to not spoil the excitement, apparently).
This argument is logically fallacious. If I had a piece of paper in my pocket telling me what would be the winning ticket for a big lottery, the actual text on that note would still exist even if I was dumb as a prick and chose to not look at it. It would mean that the outcome of the lottery was pre-determined. No individual action by anyone, and no random acts within the lottery machine could change the outcome, since logically the ink on that note in my pocket could not change.
It's the same thing if God could peek a look to find out whether you will sin and go to Hell, or whether Adam and Eve would sin, or whatever. If the possibility is there for God to find out, then the outcome is already fixed. You cannot change it. The outcome is given, and nothing you can do changes anything.
10:15:33 PM
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Rewarding bad behaviour
"A Chilean porn star has promised to flash her fellow MPs if her election campaign is successful. Reichel says if elected she will flash her breasts every time rival politicians begin to argue over legislation." (Ananova)
Alas, my net-search for pictures of Reichel to accompany this quote drew a blank. Sorry guys. I have learned some tricks from the tabloids, honest!
8:32:53 PM
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Snail Mail
On October 23, 2001, US President George Bush sent a letter to Sweden's Prime Minister Göran Persson, expressing thanks for the Swedish condolances after The Sept 11 attacks.
The letter arrived January 14, 2003, more than a year late.
An attached note from the U.S. State Department went some way in explaining the delay: "The attached correspondence was quarantined and held for sterilisation following last year's anthrax incident. We regret any inconvenience this delay may have caused you."
Good thing Sweden didn't express its condolences over the Anthrax incidents, too.
7:14:15 PM
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Israeli Mossad reactivates death squads
Many intelligence sources confirm that Mossad is reorganising and expanding, and that a green light has been given to reactivate its "Kidon" (bayonet) programme: death squads or assasination teams that also operate in the terrotory of its allies. The Israeli government emphatically denies that assasinating suspects on US soil is on the agenda, but a number of intelligence sources disagree.
At the same time, Belgian prosecutors are considering reopening the case of Dr. Gerald Bull, a Canadian military scientist who was killed in Brussels 12 years ago, strongly suspecting Mossad was responsible. In the 1980s Bull was offering his consultancy to Iraq to help building a 'super-gun.'
Norway still remember what is so far the only incident of international terrorism on its soil: Mossad's 1973 murder of an innocent Maroccan waiter in Lillehammer. He had been mistakenly identified as Ali Hassan Salemeh, the mastermind behind the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. Norway arrested at least two Mossad agents related to the murder.
6:41:54 PM
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The US offers more concessions to North Korea
In a further attempt to ease tensions with North Korea, and moreover to make it drop its nuclear programme, the US offers more than food aid. Thomas Hubbard, US embassador to NK, said the US would consider a "broad" approach to economic cooperation. Provided, of course, NK abandons its nuclear shenanigans.
Sometimes you have to appease.
6:18:26 PM
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What is similarity?
Sometimes I get google hits from people searching for "blasphemy" or "secular" or perhaps even both. And sometimes I get hits from people searching for similar pages to something not even half resembling mine. So I wondered what was a "similar page" to mine from google's point of view. Some were pages I know I have visited in the past, perhaps linked to, but which bears no resemblence to my blog (I got paranoid at that point).
Others were just plain weird. For example the unresponsive Supermodels Are Lonelier Than You Think. Well, Bring on Reality. A blog about "the gentle art of making enemies" is surely more me!
6:30:46 AM
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Bravest journalist in Britain
David Aaronovitch in the Observer discusses the media hysteria around child pornography, as exemplified by Pete Townshend, and offers a personal tale and some cautionary words. I have waiting for some time for somebody to actually dare writing this.
As I wrote the above, I noticed an old hero of mine, Brian May of Queen, actually also bravely coming to the defence of Townshend. I don't know Townshend, like May does, so I cannot say I fully buy it. A real friend is one who stands by you even when you've done something very stupid, and May and the other friends of the Who star who now dares to raise their voices, deserves credit for that.
6:14:06 AM
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"But what good is half a wing?"
One of the problems faced by evolutionary scientists is the origin of flight. For small animals, like insects, it is not too difficult. Sufficiently small organisms fly automatically. They have a hard time staying on the ground. As mass increases, the problem reverses. An animal the size of an elephant could never get enough muscle power and airlift to fly.
Bird-size organisms, which obviously sometimes fly, provide us with the obvious problem: how did wings first evolve? Naturally, no creature was one day born with functional wings. And since evolution can't plan ahead, and will only select for traits that are benefitial here and now, anti-evolutionists have argued that organs like wings (and, even more popularly, the eye) never could have evolved by natural selection. How good is half a wing?
 The most obvious possible answer to the origin of flight we can find from observing animals like the squirrel. It has a big tail that helps it float in the air as it jumps from tree to tree. Some species actually have wings that are sufficient to help it glide, but not good enough to fly. It is not hard to imagine a gradual evolution where the gliding ability increased slowly until one day one of them could fly.
An alternative hypothesis is that predators evolved wings to increase their speed while running, gradually being able to make longer and longer jumps. Since flying has evolved independently countless times on Earth, both of these scenarios may explain some occurences, but there are also instances where both scenarios raise some serious objections.
Kenneth Dial has just launched a third theory, perhaps most closely related to the second above. Accidentally, while doing experiments on partridge chicks, he observed that even young birds with partially formed wings were aided by them when in increasing running speed. Small improvements will, as it mostly does in evolution, mean the difference between life and death. And even adults sometimes prefer running while flapping its wings to flying when trying to avoid a pursuer, as the picture shows.
The answer to the original question is that half a wing is half as good as a whole wing, and sometimes better than no wings.
There is an interesting chapter devoted to the evolution of wings in Richard Dawkins' Climbing Mount Improbable.
5:33:06 AM
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Virtual Occoquan
Mark's VO 'zine, the one that requires a pronounciation guide, is out. VO is as always smoking with great articles from the last week in Salon blogging and weird hair colours. Don't miss it.
If you missed yours truly's article on the last days of the 14th century, here is another chance.
2:55:29 AM
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Bush administration looks for conservatives for Supreme Court
The Washington Post takes a look at the discussion and the potential candidates for the Supreme Court seat that may become vacant this year. With the Republicans controlling both chambers, they may be ready to battle it out for a right-wing candidate.
This is of course primarily about abortion, perhaps the one issue which divides the increasingly similar fractions of the US two-party state. However, it is no doubt very clear to many republicans that a right-wing court overturning Roe vs Wade could be a big electoral gift to the dems.
2:00:53 AM
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Pot says: Listen here, kettle...
Don Oldenburg in the Washington post has interviewed a number of fringe people, UFO-believers, psychics, generally the people who talk to aliens, ghosts and angels for a living, and most of them seem to be highly skeptical to the Raelians' claim to have produced a human clone. One Stephen Bassett, who alleges the governments have covered up the truth about UFOs, puts it like this:
"Hats off to Rael. He's a genius. He gets 10 to 15 million dollars' worth of publicity just because of a clever maneuver."
Bingo. Perhaps you're really clairvoyant and have chosen the wrong end of the fringe, Bassett?
12:07:23 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.02.03; 00:37:03.
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