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6. februar 2003
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How can I tell my girlfriend I want to spank her?
A shy guy is writing to Slate's Dear Prudence and saying "I just haven't been able to find the words to tell a grown woman that I would like to spank her."
Prudence advices him to just give it a go and tell her. How does she come up with such great advice? (sacrasm alert). I'd actually recommend him to just give her a few easy swats and see how she reacted. My guess is she would like it.
7:36:29 PM 
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Powell's talk: the reactions
The Guardian has a good run-down of newspaper editorials from around the world, commenting on Colin Powell's presentation. BBC News presents an impressive collection of Arab-language newspaper opinions from around the world, and also reactions from world leaders.
It is hard to see how these are all reactions to the same presentation.
5:12:02 PM
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Psychic graverobbing
"A US cable TV company is to screen a 90 minute seance in which psychics will try to contact Princess Diana. ... Paul Sharratt, who is directing the special, said: "People will discover a whole new side of the great lady and the seances may provide yet more revelations about her and the royal entourage." (icWales)
4:51:43 PM
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Early morning shotgun blogging
Bruce's blog (the one without a clever name) has quite a few interesting articles and links this morning. I enjoyed his reference to Gulker's comparison of weblogs to the great intellectual revolution of 16th century made possible by a reliable postal network. Not to be overstated, but well worth a look.
If you've ever been involved in a discussion of arms control, you will quickly encounter the claim that law abiding citizens carrying concealed weapons makes crime decrease, as armed people serves as a deterrent. The argument is old, but was bolstered by John Lott Jr who wrote the book More Guns, Less Crime in 1998.
Not surprisngly, Lott received serious criticism from scholars who didn't see the same trends in the statistics that he claimed to see. Most interesting, though, Bruce points us to the disclosure (originally by fellow blogger Julian Sanchez) that Lott's most active online supporter. Mary Rosh, was indeed Lott himself. The emberrassing self-praise put into the mouth of a mythical "former student" now backfires, and Amazon has removed "her" glowing review of Lott's book.
1:57:04 PM
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And here they come...
My recent preemtive strike against the upcoming conspiracy theories about the shuttle Columbia attracted its first google search today.
1:07:25 PM
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The rumours of the Net's demise are greatly exaggarated
In 1985, when there were only around 2000 Internet hosts in the world, and hardly anyone outside IT professionals had even heard about it, researcher Eugene Spafford predicted its imminent demise. In an article in Internet World in September 1994, when the Internet had grown to around 750,000 hosts and were about to go mainstream, technology columnist Elizabeth Lear-Newman predicted the imminent death of the Internet.
Currently there are around 200 million hosts on the Internet, but there are still doomsayers predicting that sabotage, hacking or cyber-terrorism will bring about its demise Real Soon Now.
Peter H. Salus, a leading expert in Internet performance, explains why the Internet is able to resist even the most powerful attacks, and bounce back.
1:02:41 PM
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Is France just playing for attention in Iraq debate?
 Reactions to Powell's presentation fell into the usual pattern: those who already agrees with him considered their position strengthened, while those who were skeptical remained so.
However, I must say I am struggling to understand the rationale behind the war-skeptics who come to the following conclusion, as voiced by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin:
"Given the choice between military intervention and an inspections regime that is inadequate because of a failure to cooperate on Iraq's part, we must choose the decisive reinforcement of the means of inspections."
I have a hard time believing that France has appointed an utter dupe as foreign minister, but I have difficulty coming to a different conclusion. Iraq is not cooperating. France in fact agrees with this. Thus France agrees that Iraq is in material breach with Security Council 1441. And what does France suggest to deal with it? To dedicate more weapons experts to travel to Iraq to play hide and seek with Saddam Hussein!
France and its allies are not only acting to make the Security Council irrelevant. In fact, they rather want the Security Council to be a laughing stock than admit that the US has been right all along on Iraq.
Swallow your pride, Chirac! You've had enough attention in this game, and probably have convinced yourself that France is a great power again. Now back off before you're not allowed to play with the big boys again.
(Picture: very amusing shot of de Villepin (left) and UK foreign minister Jack Straw greeting each other, while Colin Powell is looking at. Powell's facial expression suggests he thinks something he's way too diplomatic to say.)
11:41:42 AM
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Kevin Spacey to London
Academy Award winning actor Kevin Spacey is moving to London to take over as creative leader of Old Vic, one of the city's oldest theatres. Spacey will himself star in two shows a year, and also be involved in directing and tempting stars to come to the London scene. Kevin Spacey himself said his priority would be to discover new talent.
9:59:47 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.03.2003; 00:14:36.
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