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11. februar 2003
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Yahoo'd on Peta
I have earlier noted that google gives high scores for blogs, but the same is undoubtedly true about Yahoo! search too. While quite a few major news sources wrote about PETA's letter to Arafat, a recent search on "peta letter to arafat" gives a very prominent position to Secular Blasphemy. Six hits so far today on exact same search. Weird.
11:11:50 PM 
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The lawsuit factory
The Computer & Communications Industry Association has again created legal trouble for Microsoft, by complaining to the European Union over Internet Explorer, Media Player and Outlook Express being bundled with Windows XP. Hasn't these been bundled with at least three earlier Windows versions? Yes. So what's new? Nothing.
You see, CCIA, which claims to be organised "to promote competitive and fair open markets," is nothing but a lobbying group for Microsoft's enemies, in particular Sun and Oracle, so its whole existance is owed to harass Microsoft with legal battles around the world. The courts throw out one case, like the CCIA's attempt to stop the settlement between the government and Microsoft, and they file another, somewhere else.
The CCIA is sponsored by mulimillion corporations with a score to settle against their arch competitor. The courts, which are constantly deluged with more or less frivolious lawsuits against Microsoft, are sponsered with taxpayer money.
10:37:22 PM
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Texan comic book seller sentenced for selling 'tentacle porn' to adult
 Jesus Castillo, store manager of Keith's Comics in Dallas, Texas, is sentenced to six months in prison for selling a copy of an adult comic book to an adult. The comic book seller had been repeatedly harassed by a Christian fundie, who eventually managed to sic the police on him.
Craig Reynerson, an undercover cop went into his shop and asked for Demon Beast Invasion #2, a Japanese manga style comic in the tentacle porn genre (picture). Castillo had a copy under his counter, and sold it to the cop after he had investigated his ID to make sure he was old enough. The comic is clearly marked "absolutely not for children."
In the court case, Castillo, assisted by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, argued that the comic had artistic value, and had a number of expert witnesses supporting the point. The Texas prosecutor, on the other hand, simply argued that comic books are necessarily made for children, and since this comic book was unsuitable for children, Castillo was trying to corrupt children. He was found guilty by the Texas jury.
The case has been appealed twice, and both times the appeal was rejected. Now the case is appealed to the United States Supreme Court.
9:09:41 PM
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Ah the nostalgia of online ascii babewatching
Back in the days when online communication was done through junge drums, downloading a dirty jpg or gif would take ages. And even before that, most computers only had text screens, which vastly limited the potential for sekshul content.
Still, sex found a way around the infant digital media. Cowgirl just posted a link to Ascii art babes, so you can see how hot online "porn" was in the olde days.
::IIIIHMI:':::IHHMHIII:::
::::III' :....::::IHHMHIIII.::
::I:.' ' ''''::IIIHMH,'::
.::::::.. .. ... ..::IHMM:, '':::
..::::::.. ..::::MMMM)
..:::::... .. ... ..:,::MMMI
...:::::::..:. ....::::IMM'
.::::II::.::.... ..: ...::IHM'
.....::III:..::.::::::..IIHHM'
Just in case you wonder, the above is a boobie! Woohoo!
8:10:50 PM
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Yahoo boss cleared of nazi crime in French court
The online sale of Nazi war objects, like flags with swastikas, has caused an outcry among Jewish organisations. In the US, such things are protected by the first amandment, but this is not the case in France and Germany. Yahoo was forced to block French access to such items.
The Association of Auschwitz Deportees, however, wanted former Yahoo manager Timothy Koogle to be personally punished for the company's sale of of nazi war memorablia. He was accused of justifying a crime against humanity and also for "exhibiting a uniform, insignia or emblem of a person guilty of crimes against humanity".
A French judge has now cleared him of both charges, as Yahoo had done nothing to "glorify" the crimes in any way.
Free speech has suffered badly from lobbying from the litigation and lobbying of various 'minority' organisations in Europe. Glad there is some sense in the courts.
7:51:21 PM
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Vlad the imposter
 A 13th century statuette recently vanished, during a thunderstorm, from a closed and locked room in Castle Dracula in Romania. The mysterious piece of artwork was old even when Vlad "The Impaler" Tepes (picture), the real ruler who played some part in inspiring the Dracula legend, allegedly lived in the castle.
No wonder people are riled up and superstitious rumours abound.
Good thing, then, that Chief investigator with the police in the area, Danut Sindrilau, is looking at the disappearance in a sober light, considering the statuette is worth an estimated £750,000.
He says: "Evil forces or not we have alerted border guards and officers across the country to be on the alert for any signs of the statue stolen from the castle."
I think that attitude is much more likely to solve the crime than hunting ghosts.
6:34:12 PM
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The end of the world through 4800 years
A Brief History of the Apocalypse is a brilliant overview of doom and gloom prophecies through the ages. After browsing through an endless amount of past predictions that failed to materialise, you may want to look what the future will bring. To nobody's surprise, the end will indeed come in 2003 as well:
A number of Internet prophets are predicting that a giant planet called Planet X or the "Twelfth Planet" will pass by Earth in 2003 and cause anything from pole shifts to altered orbits or what have you. In any event, the results are supposed to be catastrophic and apocalyptic, yadda yadda yadda....
Strange, I don't hear any of you shivering in fear...
Thanks to Rayne for bringing this to my attention again. Yes, I am glad finding that site made her think of me.
3:48:32 PM
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The fragile future of the United Nations
Jeff posted a link to a Debkafile article giving a very good political analysis and background for the current mess. I have earlier noted that the phrase "international law" rests in the veto powers and balances of the big five after World War II, and that the times have changed, making this a dodgy basis indeed. The article concurs:
"If the UN dies on its feet, it is not only because Bush, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, decided to take charge of America’s world war on terror and also defeat Iraq, but because the world body, and especially the Security Council, was designed for another age, when the excesses inherent in the clash of two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, had to be contained for the sake of world equilibrium."
Should the UN be recreated? I am well aware that most politicians or even political scientists in the west will not even touch this idea, as if the UN disappears as the basis of international law, we have nothing, or less than nothing, we have Pax Americana. But if the basis of the UN power system is deeply flawed for the post.cold war era, as it now appears to be, then it will only be a matter of time anyay before it collapses.
If the UN survives this threat, there will be a next one, and so on. But who can take the steps necessary to recreate the UN after other principles? And what principles should that be?
3:24:47 PM
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Media circus clones
Steve Mirsky in Scientific American does a good summary of the media circus related to the Realian claim to have produced a human clone.
He praises Donald G. McNeil, J of the New York Times for summarizing the Raelian sect with these words:
"Raelians are followers of Rael, a French-born former race-car driver who has said he met a four-foot space alien atop a volcano in southern France in 1973 and went aboard his ship, where he was entertained by voluptuous female robots and learned that the first humans were created 25,000 years ago by space travelers called Elohim, who cloned themselves."
Steve adds, "It's not clear whether the alien was green, but I am, with envy--I'll never write anything that funny."
Actually, he then goes on to write something that I at least find equally funny, about Michael Guillen, the "physicist turned freelance TV journalist" who initially were given the task of verifying the sect's claims:
"A physicist is especially useful in dealing with cloning questions: for example, using a sensitive enough barometer, a physicist could measure the atmospheric pressure at the top of a standing baby clone's head and at the soles of its feet and tell you the exact height of that baby clone. (If a clone's foot even has a sole.) "
He has a point. I doubt anybody would take a sick child to a vet, and a vet is much more similar to a medical doctor than a physicist is to a biologist.
2:01:01 PM
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NATO in deep crisis
 The recent crisis in NATO started when Germany, France and Belgium blocked Turkey's request for defensive equipment to be set up along its border to Iraq, arguing that this would make it appear as if war was already inevitable. The US reacted with anger, and now Turkey has for the first time in the alliance's history invoked Article IV, requiring consultation with all members when a member's security is under threat.
Even NATO member countries who are skeptical towards war with Iraq has problems understanding what the three rebel nations are on about. This has seriously undermined NATO, and the alliance which has been struggling to find its role after the cold war is now threatened to become totally irrelevant.
1:24:31 PM
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Will force death row prisoner to become sane enough to execute
"The federal appeals court in St. Louis ruled yesterday that officials in Arkansas can force a prisoner on death row to take antipsychotic medication to make him sane enough to execute. Without the drugs, the prisoner, Charles Laverne Singleton, could not be put to death under a United States Supreme Court decision that prohibits the execution of the insane." (New York Times)
What medication is needed for the court system to return to sanity?
More importantly, how could any medical doctor consider admionistering this drug as ethical treatment? The objective of giving the medication is to kill Singleton. How does that jibe with medical ethics?
1:22:31 PM
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© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.03.2003; 00:14:48.
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