28. januar 2003

Matrix Reloaded The old teaser trailer was cool, but the new superbowl trailer is arsekicking awesome. QuickTime and high bandwidth necessary. Leather fetish optional. 9:56:35 PM    comment []

Navy Sea Lions The US Navy has deployed sea lions to the Gulf. The sea lions, trained in California to detect swimmers and divers, will for the first time be used in a real world situation. Assuming, of course, there is any chance of seeing real underwater action off Bahrein. The navy has earlier used dolphins for similar purposes. 8:44:27 PM    comment []

First blood, maybe The renegade Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his group Hizb-i-Islami have the dubious honour of being the first recipient of Norwegian bombing since World War II. Norway currently has six F16 (picture) warplanes in Afghanistan, as part of the coalition that ousted the Taliban and is hunting for the remains of the Al Qaeda terrorists. When a group of US special forces came under fire Tuesday and counter-attacked supported by fixed and rotating wing aircraft, two Norwegian F16 were involved and one dropped two 250 kg bombs on targets marked from the ground. Both bombs hit, but no damage assesment has been made yet. Some local leftist groups and humanitarian organisations have protested the bombing. That is the emberrassing part. What do they think we have those planes for? And since when did all those leftists fall in love with the fundamentalist Islamic groups anyway? (from a Norwegian article in Dagbladet) 8:11:02 PM    comment []

Blix the Hawk "The United Nations' chief chemical and biological weapons inspector, Hans Blix, sharply criticized Iraq before the Security Council today, saying the Iraqis failed to cooperate adequately with inspectors seeking to assess Baghdad's ability to produce and use weapons of mass destruction." (The New York Times) American hawks have repeatedly made fun of Hans Blix since he was appointed chief weapons inspector. He was very acceptable for the anti-war side. With his latest statements, which clearly lends themselves better to war- than peace spin, I wonder if the parties will change their opinions about hum? 7:04:57 PM    comment []

French fried Thanks to George at Duly Noted, who also gave me kind permission to steal it. PS: I just had to try it myself. 5:42:57 PM    comment []

Forget spies, use psychics! Physicist Dr M. Srinivasan and parapsychologist Prof K. Ramakrishna Rao have proposed to the Indian government a programme to experiment with "remote viewing" instead of classical espionage. The newspaper article is naively positive to remote viewing, and attributes more success to the CIA's and US Army's 'stargate' project than the parties themselves did, to put it mildly. Scientists like Ray Hyman of course got far less media attention when expressing skepticism to the supernatural claims than e.g. Jessica Utts, who expressed pretty wild enthusiasm about the psychic claims. This just in: President George Bush jr sacks new director of Homeland Security , employs bunch of remote viewing kooks instead. 5:32:37 PM    comment []

Maybe a Bad American, but not that Bad American Another fake chain letter is making the rounds in email and message boards, purporting to be a text written by the great American comedian George Carlin. It starts like this: I Am Your Worst Nightmare. I am a BAD American. I am George Carlin. And from there, the text exists in a large number of different varieties, obviously depending on the editor's political position. What all of them have in common is that they were not written by George Carlin. He explicitly denies it. I have been a fan of George for a long time. This political rant doesn't sound at all like him, it's not funny, and it's very republican (except in some few versions I have seen). The text has also been attributed to Rush Limbaugh (!), and whoever can confuse the two is obviously out of his mind. Whoever thought that this simplistic republican rant was written by George Carlin: Shame on you! Get to know the real George Carlin and stop sending around stupid chain emails. 4:51:33 PM    comment []

— Prayer reduced crime It is, alas, not only 'over there' that nutcases make it into the government. Edvard Grimstad, county govemor ('fylkesmann') in Østfold in eastern Norway, is a deeply religious man, and recently visited a church where he made some remarkable claims. He asserted that a prayer action with 1000 participants had caused a marked decrease in crimes in Bergen, where I (but not he) live. When asked for comments, Trygve Hillestad, information manager for the local county police, remarked that as both violent and non-violent crime has increased in Bergen in 2002,  God apparently did not listen to those prayers. They took the credit for the alleged improvement. Does that mean we can blame them when it really got worse? (from a Norwegian article in Bergensavisen) 3:19:32 PM    comment []

Indonesian police chief acknowledges JI's role in Bali bombing Indonesia's police chief, General Da'i Bachtiar, has for the first time publicly acknowledged that the country's militant Muslim network, Jemaah Islamiyah, and cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, were directly involved in last year's deadly Bali bomb attack. Western intelligence was quick to point the finger at JI, but Indonesian authorites have been more than reluctant to accept that they have been home to a terrorist organisation with widespread contacts in the country's military and political establishments. However, the investigations has put on the table evidence that is impossible to ignore. General Da'i Bachtiar speach to parliament about JI's role will give the Indonesian authorites no excuse not to adequatly deal with the problem. 3:07:07 PM    comment []

I think this one is for real "Becoming A Submissive Wife  This ministry deals with surrendering our will to the will of God. Learning techneiques, ideas, and attitudes of the submissive wife. If you have ever wondered, or struggled with being a submissive wife this is truly the ministry for you." I have the distinct impression that quite a few of my female readers have struggled a lot with that part 6:03:14 AM    comment []

Anti-Europeanism in America Turning around the frequent accusation of anti-americanism among Europeans, Timothy Garton Ash looks at examples of anti-Europeanism in the US in a recent article in The New York Review of Books. Very well worth a read. Not too surprising, the question to a large degree comes down to the Middle East conflict. It is indeed notable how many of the vitrolic anti-euro writers in the US are Jewish conservatives. And on foreign affairs, the attitude to Israel is perhaps where the sharpest divide between the US and Europe can be found. 4:21:13 AM    comment []

Insomniac cardiac arrest "Women who do not get enough sleep as well as those who sleep more than average may run a greater risk of getting heart disease compared with those who log 8 hours of sleep a day, study findings suggest." (Reuters) If this is true for men as well, I'm in deep trouble. 3:13:34 AM    comment []

Bored? There's a gazillion online Java or Flash games online, so there is no shortage of ways to kill time online. If you are nostalgic about old-style graphics adventure games, try Graal. Imagine that what now runs in a web window earlier consumed the whole power of a PC. Oh well. You essentially run around a landscape picking up stuff and killing. Well, everybody needs a hobby. You lift up bushes with (a), and kill baddies with a sword (space) or bow & arrows (d). 2:38:51 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.02.03; 00:38:26.