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3. februar 2003
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Creationists sue biology professor
A creationist student and the Liberty Legal Institute, a religious group, considers to sue Professor Michael Dini of Texas Tech University in Dallas because he refuses to write letters of recommendation for students who do not accept evolution. The Justice Department investigates the complaint.
Professor Dini refers potential students to his website, where he asks ""How do you think the human species originated?" He then moves on to state that "If you cannot affirm a scientific answer to this question, then you should not seek my recommendation for admittance to further education in the biomedical sciences."
 The Liberty Legal Institute asserts that students are refused the recommendations "solely because of their personal religious beliefs."
Professor Dini should be commended for being upfront about this. A creationist has no more place in biology than a flat-earther has in geography. As the eminent biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky said, "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution." No student should be encouraged to seek post-graduate education in a field if he or she pays mere lip-service to its fundamental principles. The religionist arguments here are absurd. Students are not being refused because of their religious beliefs, but for their lack of understanding of and acceptance of science. If rejection of science is their religious belief, they should seek a monestary not a university.
PS: It is interesting to note the differences in reporting about this case. The New York Times tries to keep a neutral tone. The UK's Guardian ironises openly over the case, and comments that "Texas has the country's only Creation Evidence museum." In the news item in KCIT in Texas, the journalist apparently struggles to understand the issues, and even writes "The fact still remains -- belief in a creator is a major tenet of Christianity," (d'oh!) indicating that theism excludes evolution.
7:31:21 PM 
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Censorware makes your DVD player skip sex & violence
ClearPlay has produced a PC-based DVD player that allows the viewer to see a movie while automatically skipping all examples of sex, violence and rude language. The product works my keeping a database of scenes marked for content. Now ClearPlay plans to market a DVD player. This infuriates Hollywood directors, who will not accept their creations to be butchered like this.
Robert Giolito, general counsel for the Directors Guild of America, puts it like this: "I have more regard for music pirates. At least they respect the product."
I guess it surprises nobody that ClearPlay is based in Utah.
4:33:23 PM
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Mugabe drops all pretense of fair trial
Riot police in Harare prevented journalists, diplomats, lawyers and opposition activists from attending the high court trial against opposition politician Morgan Tsvangirai.
Tsvangirai and two other senior members of the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) are charged with treason over an alleged plot to kill Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe. If found guilty, he can be sentenced to death.
Tsvangirai is represented by South African attorney George Bizos, who famously defended Nelson Mandela nearly 40 years ago.
Several foreign diplomats were forcibly refused access to the court, with the notable exception of the US ambassador.
2:49:10 PM
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Aussies receive 'terror kit' from government
The Australian government has started sending out a "terror kit," delivered door-to-door, to the country's households. The kit includes a 20-page booklet on what to do in an emergency, a letter from the prime minister and a fridge magnet with hotline numbers and encouragment to report anything suspicious.
Prime Minister John Howard has already received harsh criticism from critics over the package, dubbed the "fridge door terror kit" by Aussie media. Critics allege that the terror kit is propaganda intending to using fear to sway skeptics to support a war with Iraq, and that the AU$15 million (£5.5 million) could be better spent on e.g. airport security.
I have been unable to find any pictures of the fridge magnet online. Anyone?
2:09:52 PM
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Korean civic group may sue Microsoft over Slammer worm
A leading civic group in South Korea, People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD), is considering filing a class action suit against Microsoft after the "Slammer" worm that paralysed Korea's internet servers on January 25th. The worm exploited a known flaw in Microsoft SQL Server, for which security patches had been available for around six months.
The civic group alleges that a "product liability law" passed last July, holding a manufacturer liable for physical and property damage, gives the group a good case against Microsoft. The civic group alleges that Microsoft's patches and press releases was not sufficient, as the software giant held a full list of its SQL Server customers.
I suspect even Microsoft's opponents may choke at this idea, considering that such a thing as bug-free software does not exist. If software companies will be held financially responsible for damage caused by malicious attacks exploiting flaws in its software, it could put a serious damper on innovation.
1:40:12 PM
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What language is that?
Second pOst provided a link to a very useful tool: TextCat Language Guesser Demo. If you encounter a webpage and wonder what language it is, paste a bit of the relevant text into it and make it give you a guess. Apparently this demo supports 77 languages. I tested a few languages, and it had no problem guessing them all reliably.
And, yes, it could tell me that this is Norwegian.
Learning and understanding the language takes a bit more time, though.
11:01:12 AM
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The hotter side of revolution
 Miguel's blog the Devil's Excrement has been flying high in the rankings lately, thanks to his brilliant on-the-spot-blogging from the civil unrest in Venezuela. I was, therefore, not entirely surprised to find that he received close to 4000 hits yesterday, but being the curious type, I checked his referrals list to see who had recommended him today.
Actually, this time it was not Miguel's talent for political analysis that had caught his audience, but his eye for beautiful women.
Obviously, I was not the only one having noticed that quite a few of the pictures from the street demonstrations in Caracas showed a number of remarkable beautiful women. Bomis Babe Report, a site that obviously enjoys a lot of traffic, linked and recommended the pictures section of Miguel's blog, with the following commentary:
That's not surprising, considering women in particular tend to be anti-Chavez (while goons, thugs and bullies seem to favor Chavez).
As far as political analysis goes, the babe watcher may well be accused of being shallow, but president Chavez has every reason to be nervous when he finds himself fighting the beautiful women of Venezuela.
Yes, of course I had to steal a picture from Miguel's blog to illustrate this article. Just to get the point across, mind you.
10:46:23 AM
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Headline of the day
"Botched penis op doc gets the chop" (Ireland OnLine)
10:30:10 AM
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Tony Blair believes the French will come around on Iraq
"As Tony Blair prepares to attend tomorrow's Anglo-French summit, Downing Street believes Mr Chirac will repeat the tactics of his arch adversary, François Mitterrand, who supported the 1991 Gulf war at the last moment. " (The Guardian)
As is pointed out, the two-stage resolution process was a French idea to begin with. If the French meant what they said in resolution 1441, they would have to explain exactly how Iraqi non-compliance looks like. I suspect the French are using the trick of playing 'hard to get' here. If France finally does come around, it will look more difficult for other war skeptics to hold back.
7:13:25 AM
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Arnica homeopathic treatment proved 'ineffective'
 Medicines based on Arnica has been used to reduce swelling and improve recovery after operations.
Double-blind tests by researchers from the University of Exeter and the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital demonstrated that the remedies had no more effect than placebo.
It is worth noting that these tests did not really deal with Arnica per se, as high-potency homepathic 'medicine' in particular contains no residues whatsoever of Arnica. It deals with homepathic medicine, which has been debunked repeatedly.
6:38:15 AM
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Most priceless priceless spoof so far
Take a look at this hilarious spoof on the priceless MasterCard ads.
Req: Windows media player, decent bandwidth and sound. Pictures are pretty job safe, sound may not be.
Update: File had been renamed. Fixed link! Now it should work.
5:50:28 AM
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Hominid find oldest yet
 Analysis of a 3.5 million year of fossil of a human like organism in South Africa in 1998 leads to some changes in our theories about our relationship to the other primates. Many anthropologists thought that humans evolved from an ancestor that, like chimps, 'knuckle-walked', and that upright bipedal walking evolved after we left the trees.
Dr Ron Clarke, who discovered the very complete Australopithecus fossil, argues the evidence does not support this theory. The specific traits of chimps and gorillas, he argues, must have evolved after our lineages split apart, and that happened further back in time than we previously believed. Human ancestors probably evolved the characteristic opposable thumb and bipedalism while still climbing in the trees.
The Sterkfontein Caves near Johannesburg in South Africa is the richest known site on Earth for early hominids. Some 600 fossils have been collected and classified.
5:18:10 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.03.2003; 00:14:27.
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